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A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS 



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THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO • DALLAS 
ATLANTA • SAN FRANCISCO 

MACMILLAN & CO., Limited 

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THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. 

TORONTO 



A PRIVATE 
IN THE GUARDS 



BY 

STEPHEN GRAHAM 

Author of "The Quest of the Face," "With 
Poor Immigrants to America," etc. 



j^eto gorfe 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1919 

All rights reserved 



31 b4^ 



Copyright, 1919 , 
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, October, 1919 



NOV 26 1919 



©CI.A5358T6 



^>•\^ C I 



PREFACE 

The fortune of war gave me eighteen months in 
the ranks in the Guards. I have thought I could 
perform no better service than describe the social 
life and the spirit in these historic regiments of 
the British Army. I should explain for those who 
do not know it, that the Bill Browns are the Gren- 
adiers, the Jocks are Scots Guards, the Taffies are 
the Welsh Guards, the Micks are the Irish, and 
the Goalies are the Coldstream. Amongst the rank 
and file they are only referred to by their nick- 
names. So also in this book. An intense rivalry 
reigns amongst these regiments, and comparisons 
are nowhere more odious. The presence of the 
young Prince of Wales in the Grenadiers no doubt 
gave that regiment great prestige, but the Scots 
Guards yield to none. The record of each and 
all for the four years of conflict is most remarkable. 
However, it has not been the war which has been 
most interesting for me, but the men. We had 
amongst us a number of those American volunteers, 
the advance party of America's great manhood, 
who were feted in London in 1917, and I have used 
the point of view of these Americans and their ad- 
ventures together with my own as a touch-stone for 
our Army institutions and customs. "Fitz" of 

Virginia, and "Red" and H who yearned to 

charge with the Guards, and "Gurt" who died 
through ministering to a fallen comrade, and 

B , the Hamlet of St. Louis who was always 

getting punished through his talking so much, and 



vi PREFACE 

''Will" who would rather take the medicine of 
punishment than pay in coin, all were very fine 
fellows full of character and interest. Two of 
these boys died, all shone one way or another, all 
sufifered. The training in England was of the 
hardest, for Guards' discipline is the most terrible 
in the world. On the other hand, the pomp and 
circumstance of Wellington Barracks was a relief 
to the drudgery. I suppose, by the way, our 
American volunteers were amongst the very few 
Americans who have served as sentries at Bucking- 
ham Palace and St. James's Palace — in the King's 
Guard. It was a curious experience for them. 

The life in France was very arduous and full of 
dangers. All was suffered cheerfully in the name 
of the great cause. After the success of the Ger- 
mans in the spring of 1918 there was something 
which almost amounted to despair in some British 
units. But I well remember the miracle which 
the appearance of the Americans wrought "in the 
Spirit." One day in June some thousands of them 
marched past our dour, war-worn Guards, and they 
made an immense impression of faith and pluck. 
On that day, even in the extremity of Allied failure, 
we knew we must win through at last. I would 
not put down pen without a word of thanks to 
America. She was our great bulwark of defence 
at our worst hour, and again in November 1918 
through American idealism we were saved innum- 
erable extra deaths and sufferings. There is so 
much rivalry in the air now, but all Britain is at 
heart profoundly thankful to the American nation. 

Stephen Graham. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

I Notes on Discipline i 

II Little Sparta Barracks 2i 

III Soldier and Civilian 77 

IV Esprit de Corps 104 

V To the Front 120 

VI The Spirit of the Battalion 141 

VII Ways of Thinking and Talking . . . .172 

VIII France Under the Cloud 189 

IX War the Brutaliser 202 

X Bringing Back the Body of Mr. B . , ,212 

XI As Touching the Dead 226 

XII Padres and Officers 238 

XIII The Great Advance 247 

XIV The March to the Rhine 278 

XV The Finest Thing in the Army .... 327 



I 

NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 

The sterner the discipline the better the soldier, 
the better the army. This is not a matter of 
debate at this point, for it is a well-established 
military principle and all nations act on it. A 
strong discipline is the foundation of heroic ex- 
ploits in the field. In time of necessity, when 
a thousand men must fight to the last though all 
be wounded or killed, in order that a much larger 
number may march into safety, it is only a strongly 
disciplined body that will not accept prematurely 
the chance to surrender. When small parties of 
men get cut ofif from the main body or lose them- 
selves in the enemy's lines they can nearly always 
injure or kill a few of the enemy and sometimes 
many before they themselves are put out of action. 
It is only men who have been taught never to en- 
tertain the thought of surrender who will do this. 
Poorly trained troops are always ready to ''hands 
up." When in general action of any kind the 
front-line troops frequently find themselves in face 
of what seems inevitable death, and the impulse may 
come to stampede and run for it, causing endless 
confusion in the rear and giving the battle to the 
enemy. But sternly disciplined troops know that 
if they run from the face of the enemy they will be 
shot down from behind, and indeed they would 
themselves be ready to shoot down inferior troops 



2 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

stampeding through their lines. They do not en- 
tertain the hope of escape, and consequently their 
minds are at rest — as the mind of the machine- 
gunner voluntarily chained to his machine may be 
said to be at rest. The avenue to the rear is abso- 
lutely closed up in the mind. Such equanimity is 
produced by discipline. Stern discipline can 
manufacture collective heroism. 

Modern warfare is predominantly one of ma- 
chines. The human element on the positive side 
is valuable and perhaps indispensable for victory, 
but the human element on the negative side is 
dangerous and absolutely out of place. In fact, 
for the private soldier in action the one thing need- 
ful is obedience. Imagination, thought, fear, love, 
and even hate are out of place, and through stern 
discipline these can be excluded. He needs to be 
at least as dependable as the machines. The whole 
army has to work like a machine, and the weakest 
bit in it will be the first to give way. Discipline 
is the necessary hardening and making dependable. 
The best troops, however, have a little bit of energy 
and movement over for when the machines go 
wrong. 

A human being is naturally undisciplined. In 
fact, some animals have much more discipline in 
them and more obvious capabilities for discipline 
than a man. Because a man has thought and con- 
science but they have not. Personal conscience is 
one of the hardest things to modify or eliminate 
in any training. And yet it may be one of the most 
dangerous things that can be left. For it may eas- 
ily turn a man from obedience to his superior of- 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 3 

ficer at a critical moment. It may suggest pity for 
a wounded enemy or would-be-enemy prisoner 
with whom the army dare not encumber itself. It 
may cause the hand to waver at the moment it 
should strike without hesitation. In short, it may 
whisper in the soldier's ear the dreadful monition, 
"Thou shalt not kill." It may give him sleepless 
nights and unfit him for duty when, if he had the 
simple army conscience, which is founded on im- 
plicit obedience, he might leave all responsibility 
on the shoulders of his superior officers and sleep 
like a child and awake refreshed — to kill and fear 
not. 

Once a Taffy was troubled with his conscience. 
The sergeant said, "Don't you worry, I'll go to 
hell for it. You will be found innocent on the Day 
of Judgment." But the sergeant received his or- 
ders from the platoon commander, so he should 
also stand white before the Throne and the young 
officer be to blame. The platoon commander, 
however, had it from the captain of the company, 
the captain from the CO. of the battalion, he from 
his brigadier, the brigadier-general from a major- 
general commanding a division, he in turn from 
the army corps commander, and he from the Com- 
mander-in-Chief. So if there is sin, it is the Com- 
mander-in-Chief who should go to the fire for it, 
if not otherwise saved by his Redeemer. 

But the Welshman, who was one of those who 
pursue Truth ungraciously, found that ultimate 
responsibility did not lie with the Army but with 
the Prime Minister, who was in turn responsible to 
Parliament, and Parliament was responsible to the 



4 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

whole people of Great Britain. That brought it 
back to the unwilling Welshman, and he said, 
"You see, I should go to hell for it after all." 

I am afraid it is rather a matter for a Socrates 
or a Plato to decide. 

It is a palpable fact, however, that an army not 
founded on the responsibility of some one else 
would fare disastrously in the field and would dis- 
perse as did the Russian Army at the Revolution. 
And if the army fared thus, the nation might pass 
into bondage. 

But the national will is toward victory, and no 
one wishes to be a slave. Hence the unquestioned 
sway of discipline in time of war. 

The enforcement of this discipline, however, is 
often more terrible than the ordeal by battle itself. 
After what a man goes through when he is properly 
trained he will sufifer comparatively little in the 
face of the foe. Or, to put it in another way — the 
task of the N.C.O. or officer at the front in handling 
well-disciplined men is child's play compared with 
the task of breaking them in from civilised happi- 
ness and culture. 

It has always to be borne in mind that the drill- 
sergeant is training men, not so much to drill cor- 
rectly and smartly in the end of ends as to go un- 
flinchingly to death or murder in war, and for that 
purpose he has not only to train the muscles but 
to break or bend the intelligence. In a great war 
where every class of educated or uneducated man 
is called up it is a Herculean task. 

The easiest to train are no doubt the youngest, 
those nearest to school-life, those accustomed to 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 5 

obedience in the family, in the workshop and fac- 
tory. It is harder to discipline the developed 
working-man who has "rights" and grievances, 
who resorts to Trade Unions, and thinks his sor- 
rows aired in John Bull can bring about a revolu- 
tion. Clerks are on the whole a little more diffi- 
cult to handle, though they are inclined to give in 
sooner than the working-man. Middle-aged men 
of any class need a hard battering to reduce their 
pride in self, their sense of being older. Profes- 
sional men of any age are harder still, and I sup- 
pose musicians, artists, poets are often hardest of 
all and belong to a class of impossibles. A squad 
of the recruits of any regiment at any time in the 
war presented an extraordinary variety of types, 
professions, ages. 

But if the comment may sometimes arise: 
"How unjust and disgusting that a man of refine- 
ment or of letters or of acknowledged 'position' 
should be subjected to such verbal brutality and in- 
sult as I have seen," it must be remembered that it 
can all be justified on the higher ground of dis- 
cipline. All manner of substantial men, the most 
able, proud, well-known, respected in our common 
life and culture of England, have been reduced to 
type for the use of the machine. If they had not 
been thus reduced, where would England be to- 
day? 

The only legitimate objection that can be raised 
is that very often the most intelligent were bludg- 
eoned down to be war-slaves whereas the most 
stupid got through to places of authority. That 
is true, but it raises another question. 



6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

The general assumption is that a large intelli- 
gence is not necessary in war. A limited intelli- 
gence is more useful. No one may go far in 
original warfare except an army chief. Obedi- 
ence rules. 

The war, of course, caught Britain unawares. 
A fighting force had to be provided at once. But 
the population had not been sorted out, and the 
Government did not know the resources of quality 
which it had. It had only time for quantity. It 
would be agreed that the army could not afford to 
"entertain strangers" on the assumption that they 
might be angels unawares. So once you were in 
the army it has not mattered what you were in civil 
life, a green youth or a father of ten, the man with 
the muck-cart or a professor, you were (and are) 
(if not now incapacitated) a man, an effective, a 
bayonet. 

As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 
Shoughs, water-rugs and demi-wolves are clept 
All by the name of dogs : the valued file 
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle, 
The house-keeper, the hunter, — every one 
According to the gift which bounteous nature 
Hath in him closed ; whereby he does receive 
Particular addition, from the bill 
That writes them all alike : and so of men. 

The valued file can only come into use again with 
peace. Then the "bayonets" will turn into poets, 
ploughmen, philosophers, butlers, gamekeepers, 
and the rest. 

There must at least be fifty occasions in our war 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 7 

in which the conduct of the Light Brigade has been 
equalled. But the extra glory remains with the 
Light Brigade because the army of those days was 
less disciplined and more individual than the army 
of to-day. The soldier knew "some one had 
blundered." But now a charge of the Light Bri- 
gade is all in the day's work, and it doesn't matter 
whether some one has blundered or no. 

In this war men have craved wounds to get re- 
lease, and have jumped for death because it was 
better than life — life under the new discipline. 
Rage has accumulated that could never be ex- 
pressed except in ferocity against the enemy. And 
such habits of patience under suffering have been 
formed as could not be exhausted. And whenever 
one more rash and intemperate than the rest has 
rebelled against a superior officer, the wiser and 
more experienced have said to him, "Don't be a 
fool, if you go against the army the army will break 
you." 

Or another has said, "Grouse ^ about it. Have 
a good grouse and you'll feel better for it." For 
grousing harms no one but your own spiritual self. 
It is damp anger and will never ignite to action, 
never flame out in mutiny. It is what all slaves 
do — grouse together in the gloaming and rage im- 
potently against their masters. Grousing is not 
only compatible with discipline, but is an inevita- 
ble accompaniment of it, and is recognised as harm- 
less. Even when a private talks of shooting his 
own sergeant or company officer in the next melee 

1 Grouse, a vulgar word for a vulgar thing — to let oneself be 
Impotently angry. 



8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

if he has a chance — it is nonsense, for he will never 
do it. Instead he will fight the enemy more bit- 
terly and put all his humiliation and resentment 
into his bayonet and his bullets. Even in extrem- 
ity, when his comrades are perishing all around 
him and he stands in the gap with heroical aspect, 
he will have a strange satisfaction and peace of 
heart in blazing away at the foe, at having his face 
to him and being in the action of killing him. 
Then the wide circling arm of the machine-gun 
sweeps round and he is brought down to earth — 
one more victim sacrificed upon the European 
altar. 

I do not know why the various occasions on 
which battalions have fought till there were merely 
a few score survivors have not been properly 
chronicled, but have been veiled in such phrases 
as "magnificent conduct of the Staffordshires," 
"grim determination of the Cheshires," "gallant 
fighting of the London Scottish." It is a laconic 
way of telling you that certain platoons or com- 
panies fought shoulder to shoulder till the last man 
dropped and would not give in, or that they were 
shelled to nothingness, or getting over the top they 
went forward till they all withered away under 
machine-gun fire, or that detail after detail of 
bombers passed up the communication trench 
treading on the bodies of those who had gone be- 
fore. More V.C.'s have gone to the dead than to 
the living, have they not? Though indeed it is 
not a fitting token for the dead — the dead have the 
Cross of their Redemption. But it is perhaps 
amusing to the gods "who smile in secret" when, 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 9 

a fortnight after some exploit, a field-marshal or 
divisional-general comes down to a battalion to 
thank it for its gallant conduct and fancies for a 
moment, perchance, that he is looking at the men 
who did the deed of valour, and not at a large draft 
that has just been brought up from England and 
the base to fill the gap. He should ask the services 
of the chaplain and make his congratulations in the 
graveyard, or go to the hospitals and make them 
there. 

Still, he means well, and there is no military 
grievance against him. The war is to be carried 
on by the living and the whole, and in congratu- 
lating the live battalion he inculcates in a most 
powerful way the tradition of the regiment. After 
all, if half the men have not yet suflfered they as- 
suredly will soon, and they will deserve congratu- 
lation in due course. Moreover, it becomes easier 
to do your bit when you realise you are not the 
first to do it. The more men die the easier it 
becomes to die. Death becomes cheaper and 
cheaper. It becomes a matter of the everyday. 

Still the official class may not soon be forgiven 
for withholding the desperate details of scores of 
glorious passages of arms. It is not enough to 
thank regiments publicly or mention them unless 
the public can be made to realise that a fine re- 
straint prevents us from making solemn and na- 
tional every occasion of great devotion to duty. 
The common feeling must be that — add together 
the heroic occasions of all our historic wars, Span- 
ish Succession, Seven Years, Peninsular, Napo- 
leonic, Crimean, and they would not exceed in 



lo A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

number those of this war of 1914-1918. And in 
the achievement hundreds of thousands of anony- 
mous heroes, poor obedient soldiers, have perished. 
Dead ere their prime — 

Without the meed of some melodious tear. 

I do not know whether the story will ever be told 
or if it will ever be realised. "A thing of beauty 
is a joy for ever, its loveliness can never pass away." 
But the deed of beauty? The candle which once 
lit can never be put out? Have the candles ever 
been lit? Are not an infinite series of heroic ac- 
tions and pathetic if noble human sacrifices swal- 
lowed up in the darkness of time, still-born in 
oblivion? The night after night of holding the 
line, the standing fast against machine-gunnery, 
against the methodically destructive fire of the 
guns, against the suffocating streams of poison gas, 
the men entangled in the wire and killed as in a 
trap, the men drowned in the mud, the countless 
series of occasions when a few stood together hero- 
ically against terrible odds and were mown down, 
but not defeated, by the machinery of destruction. 
The frustrate red blaze of artillery over the pale 
faces of humanity night after night in the despic- 
able mud-beds of the trenches; the bright eyes of 
live soldiers, the sodden corpses of dead soldiers, 
the stars in the remote heavens, the deathless 
thoughts and impulses in heart and mind. In the 
living poem of man's life the sacrifice of our men 
and their triumph swells as an eternal chorus — 
even though we cannot hear it. 

It was decided in 1917 that after the war a mon- 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE ii 

ument would be raised on every battle-field in 
France and Flanders, graven with the names of 
the dead, and that underneath the names should be 
written some fitting motto. It was regarded as 
essential that the motto should be the same on all 
the monuments, but a suitable motto had not been 
found. A committee was at work deliberating on 
the details and trying to decide what the motto 
should be. And one evening in the New Year, 
shortly after I had come up to London from that 
"Little Sparta" where I was trained, I met at a 
friend's house other friends and we discussed this 
fascinating and (I think) sacred choice. Certain 
celebrated men had made suggestions — so one who 
was on the committee said — and he gave us a list 
of mottoes, such as: 

They died for Freedom, 

and 

What I gave I have, 

and 

My utmost for the Highest, 

and Kipling's happy words: 

Who stands if Freedom fall? 
Who dies if England live? 

*'Go tell to Sparta" was mentioned, and in putting 
the choice to the company we were set thinking 
about the war and the soldier in a special way. It 
touched each man's heart and made him respon- 
sive to the great tragedy in France. Some of the 
suggestions might seem prosaic and ordinary, set 
down coldly in print, but with the thoughts of the 



12 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

heart softening and spiritualising them as they 
were said, each had a poetry of its own. The 
truest note of the evening seemed to me to be in 
words suggested by one of the company: "By 
their sacrifice we live'' or in "They died that we 
might live," and I should have liked that to stand. 
The one that had most favour was: "My utmost 
for the Highest," a celestial motto for the living, 
but perhaps too striving for those who now 

sleep, sweetly sleep, 
Whilst the days and the years roll by. 

One thought that seemed to weigh was that the 
motto would be equally acceptable to Moham- 
medans and to Christians alike, and that "By their 
sacrifice we live" was too Christian an idea. And 
being fresh from Little Sparta Barracks I thought 
to myself: If the mystical Christian idea of sac- 
rifice is not available, why not the Spartan splen- 
dour of discipline, and 

Tell to Sparta thou that passest by, 
That here obedient to her laws we lie. 

Since then a motto has been chosen — the one 
found by Kipling in Ecclesiasticus: 

Their Name liveth for evermore, 

which for us means that their fame liveth for 
ever, their good name liveth for ever, and mankind 
will be eternally grateful to those who died to rid 
us of tyranny and war. Perhaps what the soldiers 
have done is destined to be more recognised as 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 13 

years go on. As it is, in the war we have thought 
too lightly of our men in their wounds and their 
death. There has been too little sense of grati- 
tude to the man who has laid down his life on the 
altar. Because it was his duty he was doing, be- 
cause we knew him disciplined to go to it un- 
flinching, we have involuntarily discounted his 
sacrifice. At home munition-workers and civil- 
ians of all kinds lived in comfort and in money 
and bought War Loan stock and felt they also were 
''doing their bit," as if there were any similarity 
between their lives and those of the men at the 
front. The soldier also was doing his duty. The 
idea of duty rather than of sacrifice has prevailed 
— something due paid rather than of something 
sacred made. And yet every man who died on 
these fields was offered up on the altar for Eu- 
rope's sins. 

If, however, officialdom which has controlled 
the Press and other channels of public expression 
be reproached later on that not enough was made 
of the many marvellous occasions of the war when 
our boys stood their ground and perished, the an- 
swer will allow us to imply that the said boys died 
in the execution of their duty. Officialdom in its 
own carefully locked-up mind will reflect that the 
deaths were sad, but that the men, being under 
most rigorous discipline, had no option of facing 
the enemy or fleeing, and that consequently some- 
what less honour is due to them. It is not worth 
while sending for the poet laureate to give him 
special details. He can pick up an idea now and 
then in the articles in the Press. Moreover, the 



14 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

actual facts might cause criticism of military di- 
rection and of the Government. There political 
discipline sets in, and that is as binding as the 
military sort. 

There is something quite sound about the 
thought. Discipline does discount the merit of 
certain actions. When it would be so damnable 
to disobey, obedience becomes matter-of-fact. But 
there is one thing it does not discount, and that is 
the sufferings. Though we may not over-praise 
those who were marshalled to die for us, we ought 
to remember what they have suffered. 

The later armies have fought as well as the 
earlier ones. Kitchener's Army was as firm as the 
"Peace-time Army," the Conscripts were as firm 
as either, and in the later stages when so many men 
of poor health and diverse infirmities were sent to 
the firing-line, they stood their ground as well as 
any others. Some fell sick more quickly and were 
sent back as unfit, but as long as they remained in 
the line, no matter how bad they felt, they kept their 
faces to the foe and made him pay for any advance. 
In the newspaper which circulates most at the front 
we read, about the middle of April 191 8: "War 
is like the service of the Tenebrae, in which one 
by one the lights are extinguished. Class after 
class, generation after generation is receiving its 
summons to the battle-field and passing that the 
light of freedom may still burn strong." This is 
truer than a phrase in the same paper a week later, 
in which it refers to France as "a tilting-ground of 
generous youth." In the fourth year of the war it 
is the last and least soldier-like classes who are com- 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 15 

ing in, the older, the more frail, the men well es- 
tablished in commerce or in industrialism, the men 
who could not be spared. It might have been 
thought that these levies would make indifferent 
troops. It has often been said of the Germans that 
their later recruits were of such a miserable class 
that they were little good in the fighting-line. Per- 
haps our journalists have been misled, and the worst 
class of Germans were almost as useful to the Ger- 
man Army as the best. So also with us. All other 
deficiencies can be made up by discipline. And 
never in history have such disciplined armies 
fought one another. It must have been the Ger- 
mans who discovered the new scientific military 
discipline, and all Europe has had to copy her. 

It is not to say that all units of the armies have 
exhibited a model behaviour under all circum- 
stances, least of all in the German Army, where 
often something seems to have gone wrong with 
scientific discipline when pushed too far. Our 
British Army has been very mixed. There is a 
division which is composed of the five most Spar- 
tan regiments of the British Army, and these have 
exhibited an iron discipline, one which Germany 
herself would have coldly appraised at its true 
worth. But, on the other hand, we have put splen- 
did troops into the field, such as the first contingent 
of the Canadians and the Australians, undisciplined 
and individualistic, destined at first to be wrecked 
in the conflict and to cause trouble until taken in 
hand. The latter in course of time came to the 
level of the very best the British Army system could 
produce, and many of their units could be com- 



i6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

pared with our Spartans for tenacity and obedi- 
ence. Discipline had been introduced. And al- 
though the process of being disciplined is hard — 
hard to enforce and hard to undergo — it is difficult 
to understand why the discipline and training of 
our Spartan division (six months instead of three) 
were not applied to the whole British Army — since 
we were fighting Germany with Germany's own 
weapons, and not turning the other cheek or doing 
anything ''romantic." Indeed if all had been 
trained like the Guards, it seems probable the Ger- 
man Army would have been defeated in the field 
earlier and with greater military calamity than in 
November 1918. 

It was a platitude of the fighting period that dis- 
cipline would win the war, as it is now a platitude 
that discipline has won it. Germany went into 
battle with Prussian discipline and plenty of brains 
but without a cause, and without the esprit de corps 
which comes of a cordial understanding bet\veen 
officer and man. Britain went in with a splendid 
cause, not over-much brain, a fair discipline, and a 
good deal of the esprit de corps which comes from 
officers and men understanding one another. The 
German discipline failed. Our splendid cause 
won. 

Our discipline even at its worst or best, let us say 
at its harshest, has been upheld by the sense of a 
true moral cause, and it has been tempered by 
something which our officers brought into the army, 
something which the German officers were not al- 
lowed to bring, or did not possess to bring. Their 
system was based exclusively on fear. The men 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 17 

hated their officers, but were afraid of them. They 
dared not disobey whatever they were asked to do, 
however dangerous. 

Our men are different in this way. They admire 
their officers, and more readily sacrifice their own 
lives seeing their leaders sacrifice theirs. 

German intensified discipline made it possible 
for them to launch attacks led by the men them- 
selves whilst the officers remained in comparative 
safety behind. In the large attack of March 1918 
it supported that fine flower of the system, the ad- 
vance parties of wonderful wire-cutters absolutely 
foredoomed to destruction. And in the grand re- 
treat of the armies in October and November of 
the same year it could still provide those machine- 
gunners who won the admiration even of their en- 
emies. In our attacks, however, the officers have 
led the men, and though losses in personnel have 
been disproportionately great, the troops thus led 
have generally behaved better than the Germans. 
There has been less surrender. Parties have 
fought stubbornly after they have been surrounded 
and when there was no chance of escape. But the 
Germans obtained a name for themselves by shout- 
ing out Kamerad, Kamerad, and wishing to sur- 
render the moment they were cut off or felt safe 
from the disciplinary shots from behind. 

In our army undoubtedly men who broke and 
ran might expect to be shot down by those in re- 
serve, and a party trying to arrange a surrender 
might be subjected to machine-gun fire. We shoot 
our cowards at dawn, we shoot also sentries found 
asleep at their posts, we make an example and give 



i8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

the death penalty to officers or men making mis- 
takes which have led to disaster. The soldier is 
completely at the mercy of the army, and even 
though originally a volunteer he has no appeal 
against any punishment. Punishment and fear are 
his background. 

But he contrives to forget that negative side of 
his life, though always aware of it in an habitual 
sense, and he develops something on the positive 
side — a patient sense of sacrifice and an under- 
standing that the nation as a whole is fighting. 
He forgets all the insults and pettinesses of army 
life and fights, as one who is in duty bound to fight, 
for family, home, ideals. 

This, I feel, is achieved by the leadership and 
kindness of our officers as a whole. Our officers 
are brave men; from a ranker's point of view they 
are not themselves particularly disciplined. Their 
discipline is of a different type from that of the 
men and refers to higher things. For leadership 
personality is required, and that the system leaves 
to the officer. He is a "sportsman," a "good sort," 
he's "the finest man ever was in this regiment" — 
these are common ever-repeated remarks about of- 
ficers. Not that the officers are really near the 
men : a great gulf divides them socially, and must 
do so, but the men would not follow so well an of- 
ficer who was too free with them. 

Then the officer, being presumably rich and of 
the class of masters, is seen to suffer as much and 
more on the field of battle, and Tommy realises 
that we are all in it and have only devised the rules 
of discipline for the greatest good of all. 



I NOTES ON DISCIPLINE 19 

By the way, it is often said that the N.C.O.'s 
run the army, and that the officers might be dis- 
pensed with, or at least more promotions be made 
from the one class to the other. But that is a fal- 
lacy. We all know that ''the backbone of the army 
is the non-commissioned man." But those who 
have been through the mill of the army know that 
discipline and esprit de corps and justice depend 
more on the character of the officers than on any- 
thing else. The officers demand discipline, the 
N.C.O.'s enforce it. N.C.O.'s are much more 
frequently hated than are officers. They under- 
stand how to bully and drive and terrify and even 
batter soldiers into shape, but they seldom possess 
the personality and character through which disci- 
pline can be perfected. There is a point where the 
deadliness of sergeants must cease and the fineness 
of the calm officer comes in, enabling the men to 
go into battle as camarades de guerre, following a 
brave leader, and not merely as military slaves. 

If we had all understood Christianity as Tolstoy 
understood it, Germany would have won. If we 
had all been merely brave and gone out to fight 
moved by the Spirit we should probably have lost. 
These facts we knew, and although the seeming de- 
feat of the ideal might have been more glorious and 
even more serviceable to humanity as a whole than 
the prolonged conflict, we chose to fight Germany 
in Germany's way. We imitated her machines, 
including the greatest of all, namely, the man-ma- 
chine, whose principle is discipline. Perhaps in 
our way we have improved that machine and shown 
where its defects lie. The curious discovery has 



20 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS i 

been made by both sides that men of all ages, 
classes, temperaments, and states of health can be 
fitted into it, and the weakest individuals will often 
fight the best. Now that the war is over, however, 
we must not forget that for many the greatest or- 
deal was not the field of battle but the field of train- 
ing, where men, infinitely diverse in character, 
originality, and expression were standardised to 
become interchangeable parts in the fighting ma- 
chine. 

What our men of all ages, professions, and tem- 
peraments had to go through to become soldiers! 
And then how stern and choiceless the road to vic- 
tory and death! 



II 

LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 

"To the Asylum and Barracks" says a finger-post 
pointing upward to Little Sparta, and you climb 
the hill to the place where you must serve as a 
novice in soldiering. The lunatic asylum and the 
barracks stand side by side, and the ineffable ser- 
geant-instructor when he has you in his care is 
bound to inquire whether by chance you have 
climbed over the wall. 

As you climb the steep hill you inevitably won- 
der what sort of gruelling you will be put through 
in the famous soldier factory. It has a fame which 
is somewhat thrilling, the severest training-ground 
in England, the place where the most rigorous dis- 
cipline in Europe is maintained. Not even Prus- 
sian Guards had a more terrible time in the mak- 
ing. "If you go to Little Sparta it's kill or cure." 
"If you don't break down during the training 
you've got a remarkably fine constitution." "If 
you get through your course at Little Sparta you 
can get through anything." 

There is a poor but large village without village 
life, long lines of poor cottages and poky, mysteri- 
ous shops; there are sweet-stuff shops, tea-shops, 
cobblers' shops, diminutive drapers, and crowded 
little grocers, where the soldiers buy macaroni 
boxes to make their packs square; there is the 
Asylum tavern, there is a row of labourers' cottages 
with lodgings for men who live out, and just out- 
side the gates the little establishment where a man 

21 



22 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

and his wife make a living by selling the soldiers 
sausage and mashed. At night there is ever the 
characteristic tramp of guardsmen's feet, the steady 
beat of army boots as twos and threes stamp past in 
the style learned upon the barrack square. 

Civilians have a garishly emaciated look beside 
the robust recruits, there is a curious humility about 
their ways, a gentleness, a hesitancy. But even the 
recruit of a week has a self-assurance and resolute- 
ness which make one feel that khaki has the future 
with it, and that the men in black belong to an or- 
der which is passing away. Fallacious thought! 

Little Sparta is, however, the one first-class in- 
stitution of this place. In the midst of a sort of 
down-at-heel outer Suburbia it is thorough, and 
knows it. A fine sentry is pacing to and fro at the 
gate. A picquet, in voluminous great-coat and 
freshly khakied belt, is standing to attention with 
cane in hand waiting to be sent on a message that 
may break the tedium of his two-hour immobility. 
There stands the gloomy guard-house, with its cells 
for misdemeanants. Beyond that, but just inside 
the gates, is the abortive-looking church, which 
looks as if religion had with difficulty been 
squeezed in; after the church is the barrack square, 
where pandemonium reigns, and all manner of tiny 
groups of recruits are marching and counter- 
marching, and yelling numbers at the top of their 
voices; beyond the square stand the blocks of the 
barrack buildings, fine and stern and gloomy, high 
and many-windowed. 

"What a lot of queer fellows come in at this 
gate," says a Tafify to a Bill Brown as I enter the 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 23 

barracks in civilian attire on the day of enlistment. 
*'Yes, they come in queer, but they all pass out the 
same in three months," says the Welshman. 

I realise that I have entered the soldier factory 
in which you go in at one end civilian and pass out 
eventually at the other soldier of the King. And 
this was a very special type of factory, with a very 
special type of product. The soldiers made here 
were supposed to be much more deadly to the en- 
emy than those made at any other depot. How- 
ever, if you were in any way developed or individ- 
ualised as a civilian it was a stiff process, being 
wrought into shape and standardised to type. 

I suppose the British nation coming to the bar- 
rack-gates did exhibit an extraordinary diversity, 
a divergency from type that in the long run must 
have somewhat disgusted the sergeant-instructors, 
and they must have been pretty well "fed up" with 
the British people before they had been long at 
their task. I was such an undisciplined person that 
I felt I owed the army some apology for myself. 
Still, the fact of enlistment is the surrender of an 
individual to the army; the individual has sur- 
rendered and the army has to make the best of him. 
He has offered his body and soul and will and mind 
as so much raw material — the responsibility is not 
his, however much he may be sworn at in days to 
come. 

An immense gulf seems to separate the man who 
wrote from the man who shoulders the rifle. It is 
as if he had died, as if I who write had once been he 
and died, and then been born again as a soldier. 



24 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

When for the first time after many months I took 
up the pen again and tried to write, I felt that even 
my hands had changed. For at Little Sparta you 
never touch the rifle with your hand in any action 
of the drill but you strike it. The squad stands 
with blood streaming from fingers and palms, and 
the instructor yells for "noise, more noise — ye're 
afraid of hitting it." So with rough, swollen 
hands I sit now and try to think and write as of 
yore, whilst my mind in a gloomy mood seems wait- 
ing rather for orders. 

My last day in civilian life was calm. I be- 
lieved that the suppression of my thought in a ma- 
terial way would cause it to shine forth more 
strongly by and by. What I dreaded most was the 
taking away of the marks of individuality. For I 
knew well that the army hated all distinguishing 
marks except its own stripes and stars and crowns 
and patches, and that the general appearance of 
the ordinary civilian was always somewhat more or 
less of an offence to a good soldier. I used to think 
that in the drab, dull way of the modern tailor 
every one was really in uniform even in peace-time 
— the bowler hat, the dark clothes, the stick, the 
newspaper in hand, this was the livery of the com- 
mercial service, and I rebelled. I wore my distin- 
guishing marks. However, it soon became clear 
that the army was the straiter sect. When I came 
to Little Sparta the whole army seemed to glare 
at me, as uniformity stares at diversity and disci- 
pline at freedom. 

I was a day in civilian attire, and then the proc- 
ess set in: change of clothes, of boots, hair off, but- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 25 

tons polished. The "trained sweat" ^ who cut my 
hair said it seemed like murder to him, but I'd be 
hanged if the sergeant-major saw how long it was. 
I scrubbed floors and tables, blackleaded the grates, 
shined the everlasting ration-tins. I went out with 
the scavenging cart and picked up leaves and pa- 
per; I was on cook-house fatigue, sergeants'-mess 
fatigue, washed out the floors of the canteens, on 
sewage fatigue, I with a scoop ten feet long, a com- 
panion, also a new recruit, with a large muck- 
holder. And, ''Daddy," said he facetiously, 
'Svhat did you do in the Great War?" 

A new squad was in formation, and we were set 
all manner of fatigues. In the midst of these the 
reality of civilian life seemed to be slipping back 
and receding like shifting sands under the feet. 
There were twenty or thirty of us, and we none of 
us felt sure of ourselves as soldiers, and I had mis- 
givings that I should never correspond to type. 
Worse doubts were to come when appearing on 
parade-ground in the new squad to drill. Mere 
change of dress does not change a man. Original- 
ity and individual expression shone through my 
uniform, and was at odds with it, so that I looked 
as if I had just put on a friend's uniform or ex- 
changed clothes with him for a joke. Several 
others in the same squad were more or less in the 
same case as I. But I think that for the first week 
no one came to our squad to drill it or inspect it 
but his eyes lighted on me particularly, and he 
asked with some querulousness, ^'Who is that man?" 

1 Trained siveai, slang name for the barrack-room old soldier who 
trains raw recruits in "cleanliness." 



26 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

Temporary lance-corporals seemed to have power 
of life and death over us, and thought out ever 
more dreadful oaths and vulgar epithets as we 
came daily under their notice. 

An oldish fellow, who had broken down under 
the severe training, and was now held, against all 
conscience, as an employed man, a tailor, instead of 
being returned to his family in Perth, warned sev- 
eral of us not to take what was said to us to heart. 
"The great process of bullying and intimidation 
has set in," said he. "They try and break you at 
the beginning and take all your pride out of you. 
But it'll be better later on. Never answer any of 
them back or get angry. It's not worth it." 

Another man also gave us excellent advice. 
"Never catch the sergeant's eye," said he. "The 
sergeants hate being looked at." 

The officers had very little to do with us in the 
initial stages of training. A very great personage 
to us was the brigade sergeant-major, with the royal 
arms embroidered on his sleeve. He was kind to 
the recruits but a terror to the non-commissioned 
officers. His sharp eye often detected a corporal 
or sergeant in the act of striking the men. He 
seemed to regard it as one of the worst offences pos- 
sible, and he never failed to administer a sharp 
reprimand to an offender. The men had no 
greater grievance than that of being struck whilst 
on parade, and it made the blood boil to be struck 
oneself or to see men near forty years of age struck 
by corporals or sergeants of twenty-three or twenty- 
four without the possibility of striking back. The 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 27 

sergeant-major also tried to stop the more exuber- 
antly filthy language that was used, but in that he 
was much less feared by the instructors. Even 
when he was near them, the latter had a way of 
standing quite close to you and delivering a whis- 
pered imprecatory address on adultery, the birth 
of Jesus, the sins of Sodom, and what not. The 
instructors, who had a very free hand whilst 
"knocking civvies into shape," said the sort of 
things which every man instinctively feels can only 
be answered by blows. Descriptive justice can 
never be done to this theme, so important in itself, 
this particular aspect of the training. For al- 
though there is a French book in which such ob- 
scenity as is used has been set down as heard, it is 
not really possible in English. It is not even de- 
sirable, except for one reason — that reason being 
the assumption that bad language, the "hard swear- 
ing," is only a trait of which we may be indulgently 
proud, a few bloodies and damns, and that's all. It 
is much more than that, and it is frantically dis- 
gusting and terrible. It could not be helped in the 
middle of a great war, and no one naturally would 
find fault with the old peace-time professional 
army, whatever language it found most convenient, 
but it is different when the whole nation is brought 
under the military yoke. If conscription is going 
to survive, let us remind all private soldiers who 
have come through the obscenity and detested it all 
the while, lest as fathers of the rising generation 
they should regard it in a more lenient spirit, and 
think it harmless for their sons when at eighteen or 
nineteen they leave the purer atmosphere of home 



28 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

or school or factory or office for the training- 
ground. Army life has many compensations, but 
there are thousands of quiet youths in every gen- 
eration who would be corrupted and spoiled by the 
sort of treatment received during the Great War. 
And among these quiet youths would be found most 
of the really gifted and promising. The army is 
an institution somewhat like a public school, in 
that each fresh generation going into it inherits the 
undying part of the language and manners of those 
who have gone before. The old controls the new, 
and it is impossible to escape traditions which, be- 
sides being manifest and glorious, are often secret 
and evil as well. It is impossible to make a fresh 
start and train the young nation in a completely 
wholesome, positive, and ideal atmosphere. It 
seems strange, however, that ''the red little, dead 
little army" should now set the way of life and ex- 
pression for the whole nation in arms, and that we 
should all have gone through such a miserable eye 
of a needle. But at the moment When practically 
all have been brought in, it is possible to look 
around and see that the whole system is staffed by 
the survivors of the pre-1914 army. They have 
made the tone. The hope is that if military serv- 
ice comes in as a national feature of our life after 
the war we shall purify the system and make the 
army a decent continuation school, where a young 
man can grow nobly to manhood among his fellows. 
As a squad we were nominally in charge of one 
very young corporal, but as there were many super- 
numerary instructors on the parade-ground, there 
were many sergeants and corporals who tried their 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 29 

arts upon us, and we were drilled day by day not 
by one but by ten or twelve non-commissioned of- 
ficers. For convenience I give them numbers, 
though they had no numbers really, and the num- 
bers have no reference to their seniority or to any 
other facts of their military life. 

Sergeant One ("Ginger") was somewhat of an 
old man on the barrack square. He was not so 
supple as he had been: his limbs and form had set 
long since — set in a curious regimental, wooden 
way. He was senior sergeant and instructor, but 
it was necessary for him, as for other instructors, to 
show recruits how the drill ought to be done.' He 
did the drill in front of us like a wooden-jointed 
soldier working on strings — his body had set to the 
type of the toy soldier — wooden, regimental, jerky, 
correct. He did not, I believe, turn out such good 
squads of recruits as some of the younger instruc- 
tors. This was perhaps due to lack of youth and 
enthusiasm. When alone he could upon occasion 
be heard talking to himself, giving drill orders 
and making imaginary ranks of men form fours. 
Rather an amusing figure in his way, he ought to 
have risen long since to the rank of sergeant-major, 
but could never master vulgar fractions, and his 
long multiplication sums were generally wrong. 
He had a natural malice against educated men, and 
was never tired of saying that it did not take a col- 
lege education to do this or do that. He was the 
most illiterate of the sergeants, had difficulty in ex- 
plaining himself in words, and could often be heard 
saying in his jaunty voice: "Nah, I don't want 
you to do one of them theres, I want you to do one 



30 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

of them theres." When an officer came near he 
would coo at us like a dove, and be so vulgarly per- 
suasive that we would grin, so patient and labori- 
ously illustrative that he must have been thinking 
that he would be put down for promotion at last. 
He felt he knew how to manage officers. As soon, 
however, as the officer would be out of hearing he 
would blast and damn to make up for his patience. 
He was capable of frantic fits of anger, when he 
would use indescribable language, and threaten to 
strike right and left. He was always going to 
'^bash your silly head in." When he had us away 
from the barracks, on a field expedition where no 
one of higher rank was near to hear, he displayed 
the temperament of a madman. He certainly gave 
one the impression of having a mad streak in him, 
racing us far and wide over the mud, cursing and 
blinding like some old woman given to drink. We 
also formed the impression that he taught some 
parts of the drill incorrectly. When other non- 
commissioned officers pointed out mistakes that we 
were making he would say, "The captain '11 never 
fluff," and that was enough for him. 

Sergeant No. 2 was a fierce, lean Edinburgh lad, 
who had been at the Battle of Loos and been 
wounded. He had the dour tone of his regiment 
developed par excellence. His whole idea in drill- 
ing and training was terror, and he seemed to get 
strange pleasure from giving all manner of people 
the shock of their lives, bursting suddenly upon 
them in military rage. He would be dressed be- 
fore reveille, and be waiting at our door for the 
first sound of the bugle, to dash in and pull down 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 31 

half the collapsible beds in the room, screeching at 
us as if the enemy had arrived. He struck his rifle 
so violently in the drill that his hand was always 
bleeding, never looked any one fair in the face, but 
growled and snarled in his curious Scottish tone. 
He was a good instructor, but off parade he was 
known as the bun sergeant, owing to his proclivity 
for sharing men's parcels from home. One day 
when some one had bought a pot of jam he came 
into the room and said to another recruit, "Here, 
you, take that up to my bunk, will you?" And the 
jam was gone. He was reputed to have married a 
Salvation Army girl, and he neither drank nor 
swore, but he made a meal of conscientious objec- 
tors every day, prided himself on having chased 
some leader of an anti-conscription league round 
and round the drill square till he dropped in a faint. 
He would never take a German prisoner, and in 
general he was a thoroughgoing old army type. 

He had a natural prejudice in favour of men 
hailing north of the Tweed, and if he found fault 
with a man in the squad he would ask: 

"Where do ye come from?" 

"Inverness," the recruit would perhaps reply. 

"Don't tell that to me," he would blurt out in 
gutturals, but he would find no more fault with 
that recruit. If the luckless wight had answered 
"Liverpool" or "Tooting" or "Maidstone," the 
sergeant would tell him he'd got to "brighten his 
ideas up" and lead him a dog's life. He had a 
tremendous prejudice in favour of the "Jocks," and 
was never tired of twitting our brother regiment 
of England — the "Bill Browns," who, he averred, 



32 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

"left us in the lurch at Loos." When he found out 
that I had been born in his own city he discovered 
no fault in me, but took a larger share in any par- 
cels sent me. One evening he called me to his 
bunk and said, "Ye were a writer or something in 
civil life, weren't ye? Ah well, and this life doesn't 
suit me either, I can tell ye. I wasn't meant to be 
a soldier. Just take my bike and clean it, will ye?" 
Sergeant No. 3 was the humorous sergeant, a 
Whitechapel cockney, very fond of beer, and pos- 
sessing an endless flow of humorous remarks. By 
the smartness of his salutes he often startled the of- 
ficers. He did everything in an exaggerated way, 
and exhibited a whole series of idiosyncrasies and 
funniosities. Though a most excellent drill-in- 
structor, a regular "Sergeant Whatshisname" who 
could drill a black man white, he was illiterate and 
unskilled and would not have made a decent living 
outside the army. They say that if a cockney gets 
into a Highland regiment he makes the best soldier 
of all. In Sergeant No. 3 the humour, the self- 
conceit, the natural cleverness and whimsicality of 
the coster ran riot. He had been turning out 
squads of soldiers as fast as they could be trained 
ever since August 1914, had not been interfered 
with by officers, and had developed a high degree 
of crankiness. His forte was "about turn and 
double march," and he broke men in by the most 
violent exercise. He could make us go faster and 
faster by accelerating his left-rights till our march 
was a dizzy madness, and he delighted in giving 
about turns following directly upon one another, 
so that the barrack walls spun past us. We 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 33 

streamed sweat, our hearts thumped, our wind 
went, we fell out and were rushed in again, and all 
the time the sergeant followed us with imprecations 
and jokes and commands. He was one of the most 
successful sergeants on the square and, despite his 
ways, he was very popular. 

Sergeant No. 4 was a dark young fellow with a 
bushy black moustache and a most violent voice. 
To him we were always ruptured ducks or rup- 
tured crows. He was a most successful drill-in- 
structor. He was not so original as the rest, but 
felt it necessary to be funny. This he achieved by 
scaring the timid recruits. He had absorbed all 
the brutality of the soldiers' profession, and thought 
that brutality was humour. 

Sergeant No. 5 was a genial ex-policeman given 
to drink. 

Sergeant No. 6 was a quiet, careful sergeant who 
used no bad language, and of whom the men said 
with real appreciation, "He's a gentleman." He 
had the name of turning out very good squads. 

Sergeant No. 7 was a boxer, who was also kind. 
He told us he had once been a religious man but 
the war had caused him to swear and to kill with- 
out an idea of mercy. He gave us, as it were, long 
P.S.A. talks punctuated by bayonet drill. 

Sergeant No. 8, a bayonet-instructor of a brutal 
cast of intelligence, seemed by his conversation to 
be sexually mad. He would commonly say to 
massed squads when they had made a mistake: 

"Wait for it, can't yer? Yer mother had to wait 
for you before you were born." 

Most of his observations were of this kind, and 



34 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

his favourite way of bullying his men was by mak- 
ing indecent inquiries. It was very tedious, and 
made the drudgery of becoming a soldier rather 
worse. 

Corporal 9 was a bayonet-instructor, a Welsh- 
man, who talked a great deal to us on the ethics of 
killing Germans. A very good fellow in his way, 
clean-mouthed, the right type, and similar to Ser- 
geant 7. 

Corporal 10, who took us a great deal, was 
young, stupid, foul, given to striking the men, a 
poor instructor, and very unpopular. 

There were others, of course, but they had less 
to do with us, and the details of these probably give 
some notion of our masters. 

The men who were coming in to be trained were 
those destined to fill the gaps in the army in the 
late winter and spring of 1918. They proved 
themselves in course of time to be as firm and brave 
and as effective as any that had gone before. It is 
even probable that the ordeal they were destined to 
stand in France and Belgium was the greatest of 
the war. In them Little Sparta was justified even 
more than in the others. 

We were rather the last hundred thousand, the 
gleanings of British manhood. Not that we had 
come literally to the last hundred thousand recruits. 
The forty-to-fifty-years-of-age men had yet to be 
called up. But we were mostly "hard cases" of 
one kind or another, and there were a considerable 
number who would ordinarily have been consid- 
ered unfit for our Spartan regiment even when re- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 35 

emits were scarce. Some also in a true and sen- 
sible national economy ought never to have been 
sent to fight. 

My barrack-room neighbour on one side is a 
sturdy lead-puddler from Newcastle, nicknamed 
Wilkie Bard by Sergeant Three. He is a man 
with a mighty arm earning five or six pounds a 
week lifting huge weights of molten lead. He has 
his own wee house in one of those jaded Newcastle 
suburbs, which when walking through I have 
thought must be wretched to live in. But his wife 
and four children are there, and he is proud that 
he has never had a half house but always a whole 
house to himself. He enlisted the same day as I, 
and he looked so miserable that I tried to cheer 
him up. "Eh, man, but I do feel bad," said he. 
He has spent many a quarter of an hour telling me 
domestic details of his home in his broad tongue. 
The one on the other side is Songster, as some have 
called him, and he also is married and has four 
children; he nears forty, and has a daughter of 
seventeen. He has been taken from "the gas and 
brake department" of a northern railway — poor 
old Songster, the scapegoat of the squad. Further 
on in the room is Sandling Junction, a man who 
came from east of Kent instead of north of Forth, 
and suffered accordingly. He had a neck like a 
tram horse, and I remember one day Sergeant No. 
8 got hold of it with both hands and squeezed it 
till his eyes dilated. He looked rather obstinate 
and dull, though I think he was only a character- 
istic south of England peasant. He was pointed 
out to the jocose Sergeant Three one day. The 



36 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

two stood facing one another, making a very comic 
couple. Then suddenly the sergeant seemed to 
brighten up with an idea. ''Oh, Sandling," said 
he, "fetch me my entrenching tool — and some flow- 
ers." The sergeant implied that if he drilled him 
long a grave and a wreath would become necessary. 

We have also in the room B , a well-known 

musical composer, rather an angel, and certainly 
of a very charming personality and a temperament 
unsuited to army life. The training was knocking 
all music out of him, his hands were like a navvy's, 
and when he had to go to Queen's Hall to hear one 
of his pieces performed, he had a nightmare with 
his fingers worse than that of Lady Macbeth. 
"The first thing people will notice when I come 
forward will be my dreadful hands," said he. But 
he worked hard at the drill. Sergeant 5, who had 
charge of him, was very kind. I don't think, how- 
ever, any one realised the strain and torture of the 
mind in a man whose heart and soul is given to 
Art, given long since, and the mind and body sud- 
denly given to the army. I watched it lay this 
man prostrate. Suddenly he was taken to the hos- 
pital, and he lay there in a wretched state for weeks. 
When he came out he was excused all drills and 
military exercises, but instead was put to do dirty 
domestic work. He was most conscientious, and 
used to sit in a corner of the barracks with the ap- 
palling ration-tins in a cloud of bath-brick dust, 
and he would scour, scour, scour for hours on end. 
Watching him one day when he was doing some- 
thing else, I suddenly saw that his face no longer ex- 
pressed music but reflected ration-tins; it was ra- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 37 

tion-tins all over — a most appalling physical ex- 
pression. Even so, however, polishing ration-tins 
was better for him than the parade-ground, and he 
visibly relaxed and was always making jokes, slop- 
ing and presenting arms with the barrack-room 
broom and imitating the drill. In the army every- 
thing is done by numbers. On the command One 
you do this, on the command Two you do that, and 

B coined the delicious phrases, "Winning the 

war by numbers" and "How to win the war by num- 
bers." It was a stock type of jest by him. One 
morning after bugle-call he called out from his bed, 
which was opposite mine, "Look, how to get up by 
numbers! On the command One you throw the 
blanket half-way down; on the command Two you 
sit up in bed; on the command Three you make a 
half-right turn; on the command Four bring the 
right leg out, on Five the left." ' 

"Oh," said I. "As you were! Not half sharp 
enough! Too much of the old man about it!" 

which was rather cruel, but dear B got a real 

"As you were!" from the army later on, and for his 
low nervous state was returned to his musical avo- 
cation. Blessed day when he looked last at Little 
Sparta! But, as I said, artists belong to an almost 
impossible class. 

B 's chief friend was commonly called Ber- 
nard, a famous vocalist, whose voice had ravished 
the ears of the worshippers in fashionable London 
churches many a time and oft. I think he was by 
far the cleverest man I met in the ranks, and at the 
same time he was extraordinarily kind to his fellow- 
soldiers, and was ready to take endless pains to save 



38 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

them from punishment. He never got into trouble 
himself, being very smart, and having an aptitude 
for seeing the quick and effective v^ay of doing 
things. "Everything in Little Sparta depends on 
time," he told me. "You are hustled from the mo- 
ment you get up till the end of the day, and unless 
you learn the tricks you are bound to get into 
trouble." I think he "worked his ticket," as the 
saying is. About his ninth week he began to com- 
plain of headaches, and was "decategoried" by the 
medical authorities on the ground of neurasthenia. 

I heard a curious story of a violoncellist who 
was said to have come to Sparta with long hair and 
beautiful white hands, and he would not cut his 
hair nor soil his hands, and kept both inviolate till, 
in despair, the authorities handed him over to a 
regimental band. He was very rich, and no mat- 
ter how often he was awarded punishment he never 
did an extra drill. 

My comrades included also ten American volun- 
teers, several of whom I got to know pretty well. 
There had been a rush of American volunteers to 
our colours in the summer. America was coming 
into the war, and these volunteers were the first 
fruits of President Wilson's great decision. It may 
seem perhaps rather strange later on that there 
should have been Americans enlisted in the British 
Army. But this was how it came about. Amer- 
ica always contains a great number of unassimilated 
immigrants who, while taking their stand as "good 
Americans," are not actually and legally nation- 
alised, and retain their original European nation- 
ality. Every nation in Europe, to use the con- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 39 

scriptive term, possessed large numbers of "na- 
tionals" in America — Britain perhaps most of all. 
So when America decided to take active part in the 
war she ceased automatically to afford refuge to 
those European young men who did not want to 
fight for their respective countries. An English- 
man in America had to choose between being taken 
for the American Army or joining the British. A 
great number of British thereupon volunteered for 
immediate enlistment in the British Army. Evi- 
dently, however, no objection was made to ardent 
U.S. boys who, in the incipient war fever, wanted 
to get ahead and be in Europe first. Thus large 
contingents of British immigrants and actual Amer- 
icans came over to England to enlist. They had a 
great reception, as some who were in London at 
the time may remember, marched through the 
streets, were given a welcoming feast and made 
much fuss of. Great Britain was very grateful for 
these young men, an earnest as they were of what 
was coming later from the United States. Each of 
these volunteers had the choice of what regiment 
he would join, and questions of height or chest 
measurement generally were waived. If one said 
he'd go to the "Black Watch," to the "Black 
Watch" he went. If another fancied the "Goal- 
ies," he was forwarded right away. In this way 
our regiment of "Jocks" got ten, which was one- 
third of the squad in which I drilled. 

There was "Red," a clever and observant boy — 
only nineteen years old — from New York, always 
getting punished for smiling and for being a "God- 
damned Yank." He was thought to be an orphan, 



40 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

or rather a waif, with no relatives or friends, for 
no letters ever came to him, nor was he interested 
in the post as others were, nor did he write letters. 
I believe he belonged to an unhappy home and had 
run away. He had been brought up and educated 
in a monastic institution where, by his account, a 
most inhuman discipline had prevailed. He had 
escaped from it as from hell and gone to New York 
to earn a living by any means that came to his hand. 
He was quick-witted, and was earning a living 
composing pithy paragraphs in advertisement of 
hotels and country resorts when he heard the call 
of the army. He had had no idea he was entering 
himself in a new system of discipline perhaps 
harder than that of the monks, and he was im- 
pressed with his own ill-luck — thinking he must 
be destined to be killed in France. Then there was 
ambitious Fitz from Virginia, a thoroughgoing 
Southerner, sincerely sighing for Alabama, Tennes- 
see, or Caroline, anywhere beneath that "Mason- 
Dixon" line. He was only twenty years of age, an 
engineer in civil life earning a good living. He 
was full of exuberance and music. The British 
sergeants and corporals couldn't understand his 
speech, but he didn't care, and was for ever hum- 
ming coon songs to himself. I knew him very 
well, and his favourite song was the nigger 
mother's reply to her little girl who wept because 
she was not white — "You'd better dry your eyes, 
my little coal-black Rose." He joined the British 
Army because he thought it likely to be better than 
the American one, and he wanted to belong to 
something "first-class." He watched the Black 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 41 

Watch drilling and watched us, and came to the 
conclusion we drilled better, so he joined the 
"Jocks." He also wanted to get to France and do 
heroic deeds, win the war by himself, as it were, 
before other Americans could get to it. His de- 
sire was always to be first in everything. He had 
a passion for style in drill, and was far and away 
the best man in the squad. Then there was a clever 
and loquacious actor from St. Louis, who had 
played Hamlet in many towns of America. He 
was ready to instruct even his instructors. He 
could impart to his voice several tones, and when 
you thought he had finished talking and your turn 
had come, he would suddenly flow on in a new key. 
His gift of the gab baffled the sergeants, and I re- 
member all one of the most terrible could say to 
him was that he ought to fix a horn to his head and 
he'd make a damn good gramophone. He should 
have stayed and got a commission in the American 
Army; his constitution was unsuited to the life of 
a private at Little Sparta and in the trenches. 
However, he stuck it well and made an excellent 

little soldier. Then there was H , a smart 

youth, who told me life had been heaven in New 
York, dancing every night and sleeping most of the 
day, and he never thought he was coming to such 
drudgery as Little Sparta life. He had enlisted 
and come over to England merely to "charge with 
the Guards." He told me "the Guards never turn 
back," and he longed for the front. There was 
"Gurt," a substantial, bald, industrious, teetotal 
butler from New York, a simple Christian of 
Y.M.C.A. type. He made a good soldier, but was 



42 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

killed soon after he got to the front; and there was 
Will, a conscientious and rather noble fellow of 
forty from the Far West who felt that Germany 
had to be faced, and that it had been "up to him" 
to go — one of our best shots and most dependable 
men, destined, however, to be badly gassed on his 
first day in the line and to be killed later on. 

There was tall Willie, an excitable Scottish 
gamekeeper who suffered from rupture, but was 
nevertheless graded as "A." He came to us pale 
and broken, but put on health in a remarkable way 
and became a very redoubtable bayonet-fighter. 
He was, however, terribly nervous, and was very 
much baited by N.C.O.'s who loved to see him get- 
ting more and more agitated. Sometimes every 
one in the field would be watching him doing 
Swedish drill and making frantic convolutions 
through sheer nervousness, but I have always 
marked him down as the type that gets the V.C. at 
the front. He was, moreover, the most industrious 
cleaner of his equipment in the barracks, and he 
never once went out at the gate for a walk whilst 
he was at Little Sparta, and could always be found 
in the evenings sitting in the barrack-room. 

"Now, what was you in civil life?" said Sergeant 
Four to him one day. He had been bullying him 
verbally for some time. 

"Rrr obbit cotcher," said poor William, to the 
intense mirth of the sergeant. 

"Oh, that explains why you're always bobbing 
and grabbing at something with your hand," said 
he. 

There was S , the nephew of a peer, and he 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 43 

slept next me at one time, and found a common 
ground in the fact that we both knew certain fa- 
mous actors. His specialty, however, was not the 
stage; he was an excellent accountant and a prac- 
tical financial expert. He ought not to have been 
in the army, and eventually suffered with shingles 
and was employed as a clerk. I think he ought to 
have been given his freedom. 

Joe was another comrade, the hardest and, some 
said, the stupidest, some the craftiest man who had 
ever come to Little Sparta to be trained. He had 
the face and head of a mediaeval anchoress. He 
swore frightfully, but from the look of his face 
there must have been a capacity for piety in him. 
But he never did anything right on the square, and 
his punishments were terrible. He made such mis- 
takes that one would have said he must be mad, 
and he couldn't be laughed into being any wiser. 
He was a brewer's labourer from the Birmingham 
district. However, he made good and was sent to 
the trenches at last. Some thought he was "work- 
ing his ticket" like the man who, whenever he saw 
a bit of paper on the ground, ran and picked it up 
and gave it to the sergeant, even though a field- 
marshal were inspecting the troops at the time. 
But I think Joe was honestly silly. When he got 
to France he did not put any address on the top of 
his letters, and explained that his wife did not know 
he had been sent to the front and he didn't want her 
to be upset. The motive, as the journalese-writer 
would say, "was entirely to his credit." But the 
simplicity of it was characteristic of his ways. 

What a lot of punishment Joe saved the other 



44 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

men by taking the sergeants' ire away from them 
to himself! He was the most talked-of man I 
came across in the army, and his name had only to 
be mentioned to N.C.O.'s and it banished all other 
topics, for he fairly baffled them. I think one side 
of the Anglo-Saxon race was revealed in Joe. He 
was an absolute type, and through him much that 
is difficult in the character of our public men could 
be explained. 

"Jerry" was another original. His peculiarity 
was loud singing. He sang all day like massed 
barrel-organs, or, as Gorky said of Shakro the 
tramp, as if he were having his throat cut. And 
some of the songs were of the recherche obscene. 
I have never come across such bestiality in any lan- 
guage, screeds about niggers in brothels and incest 
that might make a devil's hair erect. He was at 
the same time a good-natured mother's darling, 
confessed to me that he loved his mother more than 
any one else in the world. He came from Liver- 
pool, and was an ex-policeman. After puzzling 
over him for some time, I said, "Were you ever on 
duty in music-halls?" "Yes, often," said he. I 
think that probably he picked up those songs be- 
fore and after the performances and round about 
the dressing-rooms. He thought them very clever 
and amusing. It was very trying, however, for us 
to listen to him. 

Then there was a charming broken-down old 
sailor, a ne'er-do-well, wrecked with drink, who 
had nevertheless a mellow Scottish accent and a 
sense of the humorous which would have made his 
fortune on the stage. He was killed when he was 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 45 

sent to France, and that voice which had amused 
so many became silent. 

There was another Liverpool Scotsman, who 
used bad language like a machine-gun. He had 
the most filthy imagination as to what our food 
might in reality be, and spoilt many a queer-look- 
ing dish by apostrophising it in Liverpoolese. He 
was one of our worst characters, and soon got a job 
on the military police. 

We had a giant from Lerwick, six feet five 
inches, and he was nicknamed Figure One. We 
had a tall massive farmer from Inverness-shire, fed 
not only by the rations but from his own farm. 
His Scotch was very broad and it was difficult to 
understand him. 

The best men that we had were from the West- 
ern Highlands of Scotland and the Isles. Some of 
these spoke English only with difficulty, and they 
were bullied a good deal by the drill-sergeants, but 
they were of a gentle kind, calm, strong, and serene. 
It was always pleasant to talk with them, for they 
were without a trace of the vulgarity which now- 
adays seems to have entered the grain of all our 
working-people. There were, however, many 
other quiet Scots and English, though it is impos- 
sible to mention them here. The tone was given 
by the noisy people. 

There is one atmosphere of the barrack-square 
and another of the barrack-room; the one all ten- 
sion, the other all relaxation. At first I preferred 
the latter, but later I prefer the former. On the 
parade-ground we are all silent, we are strung-up 



46 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

and intense. We wait in a throbbing expectation 
for the word of command or the drum-beat that 
means Eyes front, and wait so intently that fre- 
quently we are nervously betrayed into "beating" it 
and fulfilling the order before the order has been 
given. We strive with all our nerves not to make 
a mistake, and as we strive we listen to a constant 
flow of violent language and threats. In the bar- 
rack-room, however, we seem to care for nobodv. 
We let ourselves go. At least the others do. I 
obtain my relaxation differently. But in most of 
the others it shows itself in an abandonment of re- 
straint. In cases where self-respect has been 
sapped on the parade-ground its weakness is quickly 
apparent in talk. Nearly every one plumps down 
on to an animal level. Even religiously minded 
and apparently delicate men allow themselves to 
talk indecently and to swear and make mean jokes 
and commit improprieties. It is only shallow and 
vociferous small-talk, but it is all the same un- 
worthy of human beings, and there is no indication 
for the naturalist that we are higher than pigs, yea, 
dogs, jackasses, sailors' parrots. 

We do not sing well. Our regiment is supposed 
to shout, and if a man speaks in a sing-song voice 
he will be told that he ought to have joined the 
Taffies. Tall Willie whistles lugubriously bag- 
pipe airs; Jerry sings like massed barrel-organs. 
But every one is infected with American airs, and 
whimper now and then that: 

At the table 
Next to Mabel, 
There's an empty chair. 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 47 

Many hymns are parodied. ''Holy, Holy, Holyl" 
becomes "Grousing, grousing, grousing!" Fa- 
vourite parodies are: 

When this wicked war is over 
No more soldiering for me, 

to the tune of a favourite Y.M.C.A. hymn, "What 
a friend we have in Jesus!" And we frequently 
hear: 

Old soldiers never die, never die. 
They rot away. 

The last hour before bed-time is the most clamor- 
ous. There is shouting and swearing and acro- 
batics, whilst all the most assiduous are equipment- 
polishing, rifle-oiling, trouser-pressing. In the 
midst of all this I am rather like one in a dream, 
but I cannot help smiling at a lusty coster near by 
who all the while he is cleaning his buttons keeps 
bawling in a staccato barrow voice: 

"Tuppence a pound plums. Syme pryce figs." 

He had sold them in civil life. 

Night passes, and the morning-bugles break out 
in the darkness and stillness — far away and doubt- 
fully at first, then close at hand, urgently and un- 
mistakeably. We draw on the warm pressed trou- 
sers on which we've been sleeping, put on boots and 
puttees, fold our blankets in the correct way, scrub 
the floor under and about the beds, wash and shave, 
draw our ration of bread. There are crowds who 
are shaving, trying to glimpse bits of their faces 
by flickering gaslight in the tiny looking-glasses. 



" 



48 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

Other crowds are swilling the stone stairs and pas- 
sages with water, and sweeping them clean with 
heavy brooms. Other crowds are at the cook- 
house, waiting to bring in the breakfast ration-tins. 
There is a plentiful breakfast at seven, and then 
general swabbing till eight — the first parade at 
eight-thirty. The barrack square becomes an in- 
ferno of drill orders, and stamping, rushing, yelling 
— a tumult which is almost indescribable. A long- 
haired Slavonic friend came down one day to meet 
me after barracks, and chanced to come whilst the 
drill was in progress. It almost blighted his hap- 
piness. He could not see it, he could only hear it, 
and as he described the sound, " 'Twas like hob- 
goblins striving against one another in hell." We 
who w^re in the midst of it were appalled and 
cowed till we got used to it. Some notion of a first 
parade with Sergeant Three may be gleaned from 
the following: 

'Who the is this man? Where did this 

new recruit spring from? Take him away and 
drown him! Take him round the back and pull 
the string. Hold him, hold him. He's drunk. 
Do you drink? That's what's the matter with half 
you new recruits, you don't drink enough. You 
haven't got balance, and you're always falling 
over. Now, then, left turn, right turn, about turn, 
breaking into quick march, quick march; about 
turn, about turn, left turn, halt — I say, what were 
you in civil life? A writer? Bloomin' fine 
writer, I bet. A writer, hfl. On that scale I'd be 
king of England. You don't knov^ right from your 
left. Quick march! You're rolling your body 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 49 

about like a tank. You've got no control of your- 
self. About turn, about turn, about turn. You'll 
fall down in a minute and I shan't pick you up. 
Come on, the writer! You see that house over 
there? That's the spud-hole, my bonnie lad, and 
there you'll go. No, it's not the Hotel Cecil. 
Keep yrrr eyes to the front, will yrrrr! You'll get 
your dinner presently. And it won't be fried fish 
from a silver plate and a French waiter, but three- 
quarters of a pound of meat, including fat and bone, 
and lucky to get it! The whole lot of you look 
like ruptured vultures or a herd of mad horses. 
Halt! Stand at ease!" 

The recruit does not know the Little Sparta way 
of standing at ease, which is a movement and ges- 
ture suggestive of defiance and a determination 
never to budge from the ground whereon you stand. 

The sergeant in mock solemnity explains. 

"Do you understand now?" he asks. 

"I hope so," the recruit replies. 

"You wha-at?" he screeches. 

"I think so," corrects the other, realising that one 
must not hope. 

"Who are you talking to?" 

"The sergeant." 

"Have you got a mother living?" 

"Yes, sergeant." 

"What would she say if she could see you now?" 
"I don't know, sergeant." 

"What's the first duty of a soldier?" 

"I don't know, sergeant." 

"Obedience. What is it?" 

"Obedience, sergeant." 



50 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

"Well, mind you do. Take that smile off your 
dial. If you laugh I'll run you to the guard-room. 
You're in the army now. Not in the Cork militia. 
No use your coming here and trying your hand 
on. I'll break yer. I'll break yer blooming heart, 
I will. I've seen plenty of your sort come in at 
that gate. I'm not afraid of you, big as you are. 
Not of twenty like you rolled into one." 

He was not afraid because he had the army be- 
hind him, and it was no use saying a word in reply. 
Some weeks later a Canadian backwoodsman was 
brought straight from his native haunts to this bar- 
racks and was addressed in the same way. He 
flared up, and replied, "You can speak like that to 
Britishers if you choose, but you're not going to 
pass it ofif on an American. I didn't come four 
thousand miles to be treated worse nor a dog." 
And he offered to fight. But the sergeant's course 
was quite simple. He called for an escort, and the 
recalcitrant recruitwas marched to the guard-room. 
There the Canadian tore the buttons off his tunic 
and stamped on them, and fought the sergeant of 
the guard, and was thrown into a cell. He de- 
serted later, but was recaptured, and now I believe 
the sergeants have him "eating out of their hands." 
No, no, when you are in you are in — very much in. 

The recruit smiles sweetly, and the sergeant, cal- 
culating perhaps on rebellion, turns away with, 
"Thank God we've got a Navyl" Breaking into 
slow march, slow march! "Right turn! Your 
military right, not your civil right. Are you on 
our side? Because if you are, turn with the rest. 
You look as if you were coming home late at night 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 51 

and your wife was waiting for you with a 
poker. . . ." 

Sometimes the parade resolves itself into what 
may be called the sergeant's school. Instead of 
doing drill the sergeant tells us facts about the 
army, and we repeat them after him, or he asks 
us questions and we answer them, sometimes col- 
lectively and sometimes individually. 

Sergeant Four has us and is putting us through 
it. 

Sergeant. What is the second duty of a sol- 
dier? 

All. Cleanliness. 

Sergeant. The third? 

All. Honesty, sobriety, and self-respect. 

Sergeant. How many conduct sheets have you? 

All. Two. 

Sergeant. What is the brigade motto? 

All (vociferously). TRIO JUNCTA IN UNO. 

Sergeant. Trio juncta in uno. And what does 
it mean? 

All. Three in One. 

Sergeant (softly). Three in One and One in 
Three. And how many regiments are there in the 
brigade? 

All. Five. 

Sergeant. Five. Right. And what is the 
motto of your own regiment? 

All (vociferously) . Nemo me impewn laass- 
essit. 

Sergeant. Nemo me impewn laass-essit. 
Right. And what does it mean? 



52 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

All. Touch me not with impunity. 

Sergeant. Touch me not with impunity. And 
if any one says anything against your regiment 
what do you do? 

All {vociferously) . Knock him down. 

Sergeant {softly, in a Kiplingesqtie tone). Re- 
member that. Remember, too — that the brigade 
is the finest in the British Army, and that your regi- 
ment is the finest in the brigade. 

On Wednesday and Saturday morning we march 
to music. It is called "saluting parade" or "swank 
parade." All the squads of the various regiments 
go round together, and each instructor wants his 
squad to shine. 

"Make 'em think y're the best squad going 
round," says Sergeant Three. "Put some bloom- 
ing swank into it, hpp, hpp. Head up, swing yer 
canes level, heads up, hpp, hpp." And he blows 
out his cheeks, bunches his lips, and puts much ex- 
pression into his knees as he shows us how. 

We march to the hum-drum hubbub of a band 
which is playing American popular songs. One 
does not wish to respond to the vulgar incentive, 
but there is no help for it, the ears prick up, the 
pulse responds. You may feel humiliated to be 
marching to the tune of "Snookey-ookums," but you 
liven your step. Some of the heavy recruits, such 
as the Inverness-shire farmer, take on a frantic 
gait under the influence of the music, but we think 
we must be drilling smartly. Sergeant Two can, 
however, be heard behind us, as it were, wringing 
his hands and mumbling despairingly: 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 53 

"Ma pair regiment, ma pair regiment." 

On a barrack-room door three verses of Conan 

Doyle's poem on the Battle of Loos have been 

copied out: 

Up by the Chalk Pit wood, 

Weak from our wounds and our thirst, 
Wanting our sleep and our food, 

After a day and a night. 
God! shall I ever forget? 

Beaten and broke in the fight, 
But sticking it, sticking it yet. 

Trying to hold the line, 

Fainting and spent and done. 
Always the thud and the whine. 

Always the yell of the Hun, 
Northumberland, Lancaster, York, 

Durham and Somerset 
Fighting alone, worn to the bone. 

But sticking it, sticking it yet. 

Never a message of hope, 

Never a word of cheer, 
Fronting "Hill 70's" shell-swept slope 

With the dull, dead plain in our rear. 
Always the shriek of the shell. 

Always the roar of its burst. 
Always the torture of Hell, 

As waiting and wincing we cursed 
Our luck, the guns, and the Boche. 

When our corporal shouted "Stand to!" 
And I hear some one cry, "Clear the front for 
the Guards" 

And the Guards came through. 

We realise that we are expected when we get to 
the Front, and have hard and splendid work to do, 



54 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

as, for instance, at Bourlon Wood or L'Epinette, 
to behave as we might on parade on the barrack 
square. No matter what sort of man the old sol- 
dier or N.C.O. may be, there is a tremendous, and 
even bullying pride in the regiment. "Man, do 
ye know what regiment ye belong to?" 
''Remember you are Guards." 

The whole foundation of army training is said 
to be obedience, and officers are told that absolute, 
implicit obedience must be obtained. It can be en- 
joined by persuasion or enforced by punishment. 
Disobedience in the field is punishable by death, 
and the recruit must realise that his superior officer 
has a life-and-death hold on him. When obedi- 
ence has been obtained, esprit de corps must be in- 
culcated. The first problem seems to be how to 
get that implicit obedience from men who, it may 
be, have always been accustomed to consider and 
discuss or think about a thing before doing it; how 
to get that obedience from men who, it may be, 
have been accustomed to have others obey them; 
and to obtain obedience that is implicit obedience, 
not abject obedience. 

The defects in the Little Sparta system are the 
humiliation of recruits by words or blows, the use 
of glaringly indecent language, the possibility of 
squaring punishments, the use by N.C.O.'s, even 
by lance-corporals, of recruits as batmen. I be- 
lieve these were recognised as defects in peace-time, 
and some of them had been eradicated, others en- 
dured in secret. But in war-time the problem 
of breaking in those who were never intended by 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 55 

Nature to be soldiers was so difficult that some of 
these ugly things became useful. Constant humil- 
iation and the use of indecent phrases took down 
the recruit's pride, and reduced him to a condition 
when he was amenable to any command. It is im- 
possible not to think less of yourself when a ser- 
geant has bawled before a whole squad, "Well, I 
think you're about the ugliest thing ever dropped 
from a woman," or "Are you married? Fancy a 
decent woman having children by a man like you." 

To be struck, to be threatened, to be called inde- 
cent names, to be drilled by yourself in front of a 
squad in order to make a fool of you, to be com- 
manded to do a tiring exercise and continue doing 
it whilst the rest of the squad does something else; 
to have your ear spat into, to be marched across 
parade-ground under escort, to be falsely accused 
before an officer and silenced when you try to speak 
in defence — all these things take down your pride, 
make you feel small, and in some ways fit you to 
accept the role of cannon-fodder on the battle- 
ground. A good deal of it could be defended on 
grounds of usefulness. But of course it doesn't 
make a Christian army, and it's hell for the poor 
British soldier. 

On the other hand, the keeping of ourselves and 
the barracks clean has an excellent influence. Lit- 
tle Sparta was cleaner than any home, and the only 
thing against it was the toil it represented. The 
Americans wondered why labour-saving appli- 
ances were not in use. ''This place is a hundred 
years behind," said Red to me. "They'd never do 
all this work in the States." And he would have 



56 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

had tiled floors, enamelled ration-tins and plates, 
American cloth on the tables, no open grates, elec- 
tric lighting, cloth or bone buttons instead of brass 
ones, etc., etc. But the extra work of Little Sparta 
was in reality part of the training. Its fruit was 
visible in our personal appearance. And we were 
the smartest soldiers you'd ever see on a street, and 
could be picked out of a crowd by that alone. 

We spend hours every day polishing. The five 
ration-tins have to be shined with bath-brick. We 
clean our buttons and hat-badge with soldiers' 
friend four times a day, and bring our boot leather 
to a high polish the same number. We polish the 
many brasses of our equipment with ''bluebell" or 
bath-brick; we polish the table ends and the metal 
of our entrenching tools. We burnish the handles 
of our bayonets with the burnisher. We polish our 
dummy cartridges, our oil-bottles, and the weights 
of our pull-throughs. For kit inspection we pol- 
ish the backs of our blacking-brushes, clothes, and 
hair-brushes with "nutto" or ''sap." We polish 
the insteps of the soles of our duplicate pair of 
boots. The eight metal wash-basins which we 
never use we bring to a high lustre with "globe 
polish," and the backs of our Bibles which we do 
not read we diligently bring to a polish with "nug- 
get" or "sap." Our knife, fork, and spoon are of 
the sort that rapidly tarnish, so the smart men never 
use them, but keep a duplicate set for use at table, 
which set they generally keep dirty. Many of us 
also use brushes of our own, and we wear also our 
own socks and shirts, so that the army kit may be 
always ready for inspection. 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 57 

Every night we carefully soap the insides of our 
trouser-creases, wet the outsides, and we obtain 
smartness by laying the damp garments on our mat- 
tresses and sleeping on them. We carefully fold 
our tunics in a certain way and no other, and we 
strap our overcoats on the pegs behind our beds, 
so that they may show not one slightest crease. We 
keep rags and dusters and silk dusters, shining the 
wood of our rifles with them till it glimmers, and 
gently polishing our hat-bands to a colour matching 
that of the wood. We scrub our equipment, and 
then paste khaki bianco on it. We wash our kit- 
boxes and bath-brick our shelves. Thus it may be 
understood that if we turn out smart on parade it 
is not without pain on our part. // faut souffrir 
pour etre beau. 

It does not come at all natural to men recruited 
mostly from grubby industrialism. I spent the 
summer before entering the army lecturing in the 
canteens of our munition works, and it was a mar- 
vellous contrast, the grubbiness of the men in the 
one, the shine and sparkle of the men in the other. 
There undressed for medical inspection at the same 
time as I at the depot six candidates for our famous 
brigade. The body of one was coaly black and 
of another brown. But they soon became rela- 
tively white, marched as they were weekly to com- 
pulsory hot baths, and inspected by officers to see 
that they were clean. Nothing is accounted more 
shameful than to be found dirty, and for the offence 
such humiliating punishment as being washed by 
corporals with scrubbing-brushes is meted out. 

They come in unshaven and with lank hair, but 



58 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

woe betide the Spartan who turns out badly shaved 
or without the evidence of a weekly hair-cut. 
They are introduced to the tooth-brush, and al- 
though it seems taken for granted that metal polish 
can be applied to buttons with the same brush as 
the powder to the teeth, the men do certainly apply 
the latter. 

An officer noticed a strange tint in a tooth-brush 
one day, learned that it was from metal polish, and 
asked the man with what brush he cleaned his 
teeth. "Oh, I borrow one, sir," lied the man in 
alarm. ''You what? Oh, you must never do 
that," said the officer. 

The men are lectured on keeping their nails 
clean. One day I heard the following: "Most 
of you men are married. I'd be ashamed to sit 
down to meals with dirty nails. It's such a bad 
example to your children." None of the men 
made any comment, but it must have been a new 
idea to most of them. 

But polish does not end with clothes and appear- 
ance. The men are expected to walk well. No 
more slouching and loafing. They must always 
remember they are Spartans, and are setting an ex- 
ample to the rest of the army. This has to be 
drilled into them. They have double as much 
drilling as the rest of the army, and they are drilled 
in a sharper, smarter way. Our turnings on the 
march are clean-cut and rapid. We form fours 
with the precision of a bolt movement. We never 
touch the rifle in drill but we strike it. We stamp 
our feet in a staccato when we turn about, and all 
the time we are cajoled and encouraged and bul- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 59 

lied to put "bags of swank into it." Above all 
things we must salute with style. Twice in lec- 
tures officers pointed the moral of the state of 
things in Russia as being due to the initial folly of 
not saluting. When at large, and even when in 
London, we are supposed to give full and careful 
salute to every officer we pass. 

One day the King expressed a wish to inspect 
us. The squad in which I drilled had by that 
time become senior, and we had the honour of pre- 
paring for him and receiving him. As the ex- 
sergeant-major said, rejoicing he was himself out 
of it, "You'll see wind up in the depot as never be- 
fore." So it was ; we had a terrific orgy of polish- 
ing, and if His Majesty could only have seen us at 
work the day before he came he would have felt 
more impressed than by all the glittering parades 
and Royal salutes in the world. We were in- 
spected at 2 P.M., at 4 P.M., at 6 P.M. And finally 
at 8 P.M. we laid out all our equipment on our beds, 
and Sergeant One, who was in charge, passed it as 
perfect. Mine was one of the first he saw, and 
even he seemed to look at it with awe. "Now you 
must wrap it up in one of your sheets for the night, 
so as none of the cold air gets at it before morning," 
said he. Next day, what a scene! The officers all 
going about with drawn swords. All the men 
drawn up in long ranks, faces tense, bodies breath- 
less, rifles presented and rigid, with the bright 
bayonets bisecting the tips of our noses. The wait- 
ing. The National Anthem, and then the King 
going by, looking at his soldiers one by one and 
seeing that they were good. Even the sun seemed 



6o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

to have been getting ready overnight, and to have 
saved himself from damp air. And the officers 
in attendance on the King had an expression on 
their faces which seemed to say: "The Spartans, 
of course; always the same. So it was, so 'twill 
be." 

But I could not help remembering we were, 
nevertheless, civilians in khaki, and we came from 
home life, most of us from poky homes with no 
bathrooms, and we must return there by and by if 
we did not fall in battle. How much of all this 
amour propre shall we carry back? Shall we hold 
ourselves erect when we get our "civvy" clothes 
on? Shall we at least remember in a practical way 
that we have been trained at Little Sparta? 

"What do you notice about civilians when you 
compare their bearing with that of a soldier?" 
asked an officer. 

"Why, an absence of self-respect more or less," 
he replies. "He doesn't care sufficiently to dress 
himself properly." 

"What is the third duty of a soldier?" asks Ser- 
geant Four. 

"Honesty, sobriety, and self-respect," we reply. 
. "And what is self-respect?" 

"Keeping your buttons bright." 

Our smartness increases with very marked 
rapidity, and it should be remarked that after three 
months at Little Sparta a standard of smartness is 
achieved which is not kept up in its entirety at 
other barracks and at the Front. Squads change 
from civilians to soldiers before the eyes. If in- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 6i 

dividual recruits don't improve they are harried 
and baited and given pack-drills, and made to do 
each parade with a pack on the back, put on heavy 
patrol work at night, thrown into the guard-room 
on a slight provocation, sworn at, thumped. Then 
some one will say to them, supposing they com- 
plain of feeling unwell, "Why don't you go sick? 
Go sick and stay sick?" That is why Little Sparta 
has been nicknamed "Kill or Cure." If you "make 
good" in the squad your treatment will improve 
somewhat, but if not, it will get worse and worse. 
The best thing a man could do in the latter case 
was eventually to go sick, unless he was intent on 
being a hero and martyr. The medical staff was 
very good, and, I believe, viewed with professional 
disfavour the Spartan process of breaking in civil- 
ians. If occasionally men were injured physically 
or dropped dead on the parade-ground it was no 
fault of the medical authority; the only fault was 
the original fault of the requisition that men who 
were in reality unfit should be graded A, and then 
the sending such men to Little Sparta. Conditions 
at the Front itself were less arduous than there. 

The story of Songster, our scapegoat, may give 
an idea of how intolerant Little Sparta was of an 
ungainly man a little over age and a bit weak. 

Songster prefaced many of his remarks with the 
explanatory phrase, "Being in the gas and brake 
department." He was employed on a railway, 
and we all realised that the man who climbs along 
the tops of railway carriages with a mysterious can 
in his hand is really a funny type. Songster was 
the most bullied and the cheeriest man of us all. 



62 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

And he was not merely a new recruit, he remained 
an impossible one, and permanently took the run- 
ning fire of abuse oflf us all. He got into trouble 
with every one. He stood like an awkwardly tied- 
up bundle, his puttees were tangled round his legs, 
his hat unstraight. He was short, and he had a 
curled red nose and wrinkles about his cheery eyes 
that made him look like Punch, and he very quickly 
showed a weakness in one hip that gave him a lurch- 
ing little limp as he marched. So even a new 
N.C.O. or strange officer looking at our squad for 
the first time, picked him out, and would ask with 
a tone of annoyance, "Who is that man?" 

An officer and the sergeant-in-waiting came in 
one day at dinner and saw gravy being spilt on the 
table by one of us. "This gravy," said the officer. 
"Upon my word, you live like pigs. Who is this 
man?" 

"Songster, sir," was the reply. 

"Got him, sir," said the sergeant, writing the 
name in the book. 

And it became a catch question in the barrack- 
room. We all used to shout out, and not least 
Songster himself — 

"Who is this funny fellow?" 

"Songster, sir." 

"Got him, sir." 

Sergeant Three's favourite expressions for him 
were "Fred Mayo," "Dosey," and "Basin of death 
warmed up," or just "Death." "Come on. Death," 
he used to shout as Songster inevitably took the 
wrong turning on the march. 

After his first day's gruelling of abuse he said 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 63 

to me with a face puckered by emotion, *'By gum, 
I never felt so bad in my life." We were sitting 
together at a table at the Y.M.C.A. hut, and were 
writing letters home whilst hymns and exhortations 
raged over our heads, ever and anon having to 
stand whilst prayers were made for our souls' sal- 
vation. Finally the "sob-raiser," as the Americans 
called him, made the following appeal: 

*'Now I've got a lot of little cards here, and I 
want each of you young men to sign them before 
you go out. Just write A.C. on them and your 
name, and that will be enough. A.C. means 'ac- 
cepted Christ,' and if any one has accepted Christ 
this day he'll feel so much happier if he writes it 
down. Just think what a comfort it will be to 
your mothers, if any of you die, to know that al- 
though you were not a religious sort, you found a 
Saviour in the army and booked a seat before 
going West." 

''By gum," said Songster, "give me a card." 

I thought Songster was going to suffer a great 
deal. But after three or four days of it he began 
to cheer up, and became extraordinarily light- 
hearted. 

The most insulting remarks were made to him 
and about him, and the corporal used to say to us: 
"This man spoils the squad. If I were you I'd 
take him round the houses and knock hell out of 
him, so that he never turned up on parade again." 
But Songster, though undoubtedly he felt such 
things, never showed it, and the worse his plight 
the more exuberant his humorous remarks when 
he got back to the barrack-room. He outswore 



64 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

every one in the room and told more shocking 
stories. The men used regularly to look to him 
for funny stories. One night he told over and over 
again by request, after lights out, when we were 
all stretched in our beds, an atrocious story of a 
woman whose boy was charged with stealing, and 
she said to the judge, "Punish him, sir, he always 
were a thief, he were a thief before he were born." 
"How's that, my good woman, a thief before he 
was born. . . ." But truly more funny things 
were said to him than he himself told. 

We were all dressed for our first sentry duty one 
evening, and Sergeant Three was inspecting our 
buttons and bayonets. He stood behind Songster 
and began giving him solemn advice. 

"Now, Songster," says he. "If there is an air- 
raid don't you get mixed up in it. Don't you re- 
taliate." 

Punishments were heaped heavy on him. He 
did an extra pack-drill every night. He was con- 
fined to barracks, forced to turn out in full march- 
ing order at every parade, and had to answer his 
name at various hours of the night when the 
"angels whisper" called him. On Saturdays and 
Sundays he was detailed for the town patrol. 

He was not really fit, and the object of the N.C. 
O.'s seemed to be to "crock him up" and get his 
medical category lowered. It was rather a dread- 
ful procedure, and I felt sorry for him, the more 
so as he was an astonishingly kind neighbour to us 
all, and was always on the alert to save us from 
trouble. He used to take a look round at every 
man's kit every morning and put anything right 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 65 

that was at odds, and of course inevitably he "lost 
his own name" for his own kit being wrong. He 
saved me several drills; on the other hand, I gave 
him advice and made him report sick several times 
when he thought of still bearing up. As his hip 
got worse I consoled him with the thought that he 
would be able to "work his ticket," as the saying 
is. And he kept in touch with his boss on the rail- 
way, for in the event of his category being reduced 
the railway must apply for him, or else he would 
remain an odd man about the barracks, doing dirty 
jobs. 

He was our despised and rejected. When I told 
him I would some time write an account of our 
life at Little Sparta, he said to me, "I suppose 
you'll put me in your book — 'Songster, sir.' " 
"Oh, I'm waiting for you to die," I would reply. 
"One must have a culminating point, you know. 
Then one can begin : 'The most original fellow in 
our squad has just dropped down dead,' and tell 
all about him." And he would grin all over his 
funny red face, so that it was impossible not to 
laugh with him. 

"You fellows don't grasp Songster," said I. 
"Because the sergeants speak to him as if he were 
dirt, and every one laughs at him, you think of 
him as a negligible quantity. But think of him 
at home, a respected husband and father, to whom 
a wife and little ones look up for advice. He has 
a pretty daughter of seventeen whom some of you 
might like to marry. He is a taxpayer, a house- 
holder, he has a vote, his life is insured, he is a 
valued servant of the North Eastern Railway." 



66 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

"But in the army he is just dirt," said several. 

Even so. 

He told me a good deal of his story. He had 
been in the green-grocery business, and had also 
sold coal, had prospered for a while, and then, 
through no fault of his own, had failed. His busi- 
ness stopped, and he had to cast round for a job. 
He was unemployed and owed a lot for rent. His 
landlady was sorry for him and said he need not 
pay. Then he got a railway job, and he steadily 
paid off his arrears of rent, much to the surprise 
and pleasure of the landlady, who seems to have 
been a kind woman, for she repeatedly endeavoured 
to help him. Songster, however, was independent, 
and liked to fight on by himself. Nevertheless the 
landlady became his benefactress, and undertook 
the education of his daughter Lily. Lily wrote 
long letters to her father, which she signed "Black 
Devil," and had just got a post as a clerk on the 
N.E.R., as the father had been taken for the army. 
She signed herself "Black Devil" because Songster 
had once called her so in a game, and the nick- 
name remained. His benefactress now lived at 
Brighton, and he wrote to her now and then. 
Eventually he felt he'd like to send her a present 
as a mark of respect, and he hit on the idea of send- 
ing one of my books. "If I can tell her the man 
who sleeps next me in barracks wrote it, it will be 
very interesting," said he. It much amused me, 
but we sent my latest book inscribed, and the old 
lady replied she was pleased to think of him among 
such nice companions. 

As a result of reporting sick so often he was ex- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 67 

cused bayonet-drill, and was then taken off duties 
altogether and put in the convalescent squad, which 
does merely gentle country walks. He was for- 
bidden to do pack-drills, and worked off his pun- 
ishments in fatigue instead. Although the N.C. 
O.'s were more and more brutal, the captain no- 
ticed his plight and was kind to him. He refused 
to punish him any more. Songster dropped out 
of our squad and floated into calmer waters, being 
attached to another regiment that wanted a man to 
make up. At Christmas only two men were to 
have leave, and I put him up to the best way to 
get it. The ruse succeeded, and to his great joy 
his leave paper was signed and he got clear for 
eight days. 

On the last day but one he received a damping 
letter from his wife saying how little food there 
was in the house, and how hard it would be to feed 
an extra mouth. But by the same post Black Devil 
wrote how pleased she'd be to see her Dad. And 
on the last day before starting off there came a 
windfall in the shape of fifty shillings arrears of 
army pay, and our Songster was chirping for joy 
all over the barracks, and he bought regimental 
crests and brooches for all his family. Whilst he 
was away we ''passed out" as a fit and proper 
squad. Whether Songster will ever "pass out" I 
know not. But he will never be a true Spartan, 
though we should love to have him with us just to 
keep us gay. 

"Who is that funny man?" 

"Songster, sir." 

"Put him in the book." 



68 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

"He's already in, sir." 

''Then put him in again." 

If Songster has played his cards well he has got 
returned to his railway task, though I believe he 
had a sort of sneaking inclination to go to the 
Front, and prove that it was an Englishman that 
did beget him. If he had been a shirker he could 
have arranged matters at Little Sparta and got back 
to civil life. But I don't suppose he would have 
cared to face his wife and children as an unfit man. 
Pride intervenes. He has therefore in all proba- 
bility found his way out to the ditches and the wire 
and the adventure, and may even have won the 
D.C.M. before the armistice. It is a notorious 
fact that the recruits who are most difficult to train 
often do extremely well when they have to face the 
real thing. 

We had quite a number of "crocks." "Crocks" 
are always more serviceable than "duds," be it re- 
membered. There was a bank-manager with a 
hammer toe, who had come all the way from South 
America to join up. He trained and passed out 
and did splendidly at the Front. We had at least 
two ruptured men; one of them wore always an 
extremely awkward instrument, which he hated to 
expose at the many medical inspections: both men 
got to France and were as good as any others. 

We had a man who suffered greatly from gas- 
tritis, a man who had lost half a thumb, a man 
whose feet were such a mass of corns that the doctor 
despaired of his ever doing a drill. And we had 
men with weak chests, with weak ankles, with weak 
brains, and lung trouble and rheumatism and neu- 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 69 

rasthenia. But they nearly all seemed to make 
good in time, and they filled up the gaps in the 
heroic line — which illustrates the point that in this 
War, out of almost any material, first-class soldiers 
could be made. 

I saw a great deal of suffering on the part of these 
men and these boys. And it was patiently and 
quietly borne. It was theirs to bear it and they bore 
it. Any physical infirmity you might have was 
bound to make itself felt at Little Sparta. You 
drilled to the breaking-point, and then you went on 
drilling. Respite came at night when we took off 
puttees and boots from swollen legs and feet, and 
lay down on our wooden beds and slept. What 
intense sleeping there was in these barrack-rooms! 
Men rejoiced that it was evening and that the 
blessed time was coming. I think for a few min- 
utes after ''Lights out!" the hidden side of men's 
personalities suffused their brains, the tender bonds 
with the women they loved asserted themselves, or, 
if they knew no women, with that sweet alter ego 
that abides in each of us ready to comfort and soothe, 
and, like God, wipe away the tears from the eyes. 
The image of the wife behind and the faces of lit- 
tle ones shone in the brain. I suppose few people 
realise the desperate unhappiness which parting 
a man from his wife sometimes involves, a silent 
agony, too, of which men do not care to speak to 
their comrades. 

Most nights it must be said I slept like a dead 
man, and yet with a waking ear for the voices of 
the barrack-room. Men become more lovable 
when they cease swearing and fall like children 



70 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

into Nature's arms in sleep. Again and again 
some one gives a complaining sigh, or is about to 
utter a complaining word, but relapses somehow 
into silence again, comforted. Some one in de- 
lirium jumps up in bed and cries "Halt!" and an- 
other cries out, "Oh, oh, where am I, where am 
I?" The strong man next me from Newcastle is 
restless too, and I hear him whisper to the un- 
known, "My poor bairn, my poor bairn, it's aw- 
fu'." 

A man's first meeting with his wife after being 
taken for a soldier is one of strange pathos. Pleas- 
ure and pain and surprise are mingled, and I think 
pain is sometimes the most. She has not seen him 
in uniform before, and it makes a great difference 
in his appearance. She grasps, even if he does 
not, that the uniform means that he does not belong 
to her as before, that he belongs to the King. She 
may admire him in the conventional way because 
in uniform he already looks "a hero," but there is 
always a poignant other feeling beneath. She is 
robbed. And the man she meets is clearly not the 
same man as went away from her. Something of 
his personality has been shorn away from him, 
something of that which made him lovable to 
her. 

Thus it is. A picquet comes and tells you a lady 
is at the gate. You know she is coming and are 
ready to go out. It is perhaps your first time be- 
yond the portal of the barrack-yard. A corporal 
inspects you to see whether your appearance is 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 71 

worthy of the regiment before he lets you out, and 
your wife waits whilst some sergeant or other talks 
to her saucily. However, out you go hurriedly, 
silently, trek from the prison walls with the woman 
of your heart. It is amazingly difficult to speak. 
Time is your enemy, for you have only an hour or 
so before the nightly roll-call. Your wife is dum- 
founded by your appearance, and you, for your 
part, walk like a policeman showing some one the 
way. Rain blows out of a cloud — chilling and 
soaking you both, and incidentally tarnishing your 
buttons and brasses. It drives you back from the 
wooded hills to those mean booths and shops which 
straggle alongside the barrack-walls and the ad- 
jacent grounds of the Lunatic Asylum. In the 
darkness somewhere there is a coloured sign lit up 
from within — "Hot Suppers. Now Ready." It 
is the inevitable sausage shop. And husband and 
wife, half-drenched with pelting rain, sit facing 
one another at a little table, and sausage and 
mashed is put between. Meanwhile insistent bugle 
blasts break out from Sparta — the "angels whis- 
per" and the picquet call, and what not, and the 
woman inevitably starts at the imperious military 
demand of these brassy calls. Heavy Guards- 
men's feet crash past on the road. And duty calls. 
You have never loved your wife more, and yet you 
have nothing to say to her, and somehow you feel 
distant. You are harder and firmer than you were 
a week or so ago. Your mind is a blank, and you 
are waiting for orders, so to speak. The woman, 
alas, has two miles to walk through storm and rain 



72 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

to a friend's house, where she is staying the night. 
And you? You must go. You must say Good- 
bye and have done, and return to the gate. And 
it is a case in which: 

Alas, I cannot bless thee, my beloved, 
May God bless thee! 

And it makes you wish to curse the army, and by 
the time you reach the barrack-room you are white 
with voiceless, passionate anger and resentment. 

Another great pain which is suffered is in learn- 
ing to be impure. It is only a strong character 
that can resist the infection of impurity. Inevita- 
bly you say or think things which are obscene and 
brutal, and many go and do the sort of things they 
say and think. With what a pang do you relinquish 
the sacredness of your manhood. You often hear 
it said in a jocular way: "What would the missus 
think if she could hear me now!" But oh, the 
grief in the secret places of the heart when you 
first begin to swear, when you first say indecent 
things, when, perchance, in a moment of confra- 
ternity a man says an indecent thing about his own 
wife! 

The individual man is better than the army he 
is in. There are few recruits whose character is 
worse than the army they enter. And, of course, 
the reverse is also partly true: no individual is as 
brave or as patient as the army. I think the 
splendour of the latter fact dims our eyes to the 
former. Rightly so, perhaps. But the individual 
in the army takes the patience and bravery for 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 73 

granted. He feels more deeply the other. Spir- 
itual suffering and moral defeat cut much deeper 
than the ordeal in which the nobler instincts tri- 
umph. 

As the school has a lower moral atmosphere than 
the homes from which it recruits its children, so 
the army is lower than civil life. The army (and 
probably not only our own, but every other army) 
has a virus of its own. As an institution it is satu- 
rated with a disease which it communicates in a 
greater or lesser degree to all who come into it. 
How to combat that disease must be one of the 
problems of democracy, how to reform the institu- 
tion on a cleaner basis. I know there are many 
who would say: ''Oh, reform it altogether, get rid 
of it, be as little children and live without it." 
But that ideal is not likely to be realised soon, and 
meanwhile it is worth while examining conditions 
which seem to belong to the past, present, and fu- 
ture of the army alike. 

There are also many who would deny that the 
moral atmosphere of the army is lower than that of 
civil life, and many who admit the low state, but 
conceive it to be better and jollier and more de- 
sirable than the higher. 

Be that as it may, none can deny the real suffer- 
ing of the conscript when he first begins to use foul 
language. The pang is repeated when he first 
gives way to drink, and if he succumbs, as so many 
inevitably do, to sexual temptation, and if he falls 
in with the wrong sort of girl. A good soldier, 
however, can keep away from drink and lust, 
though he seldom can escape from impurity of 



74 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

language and thought. Of this he feels the pain, 
and it is part of the suffering he must endure, but 
I do not think he has the responsibility. The army 
itself has that. When he begins to use the army's 
language without willing it he has ceased to be an 
individual soldier, and has become soldiery. 

The best part of the training at Little Sparta was 
the bayonet-fighting, in which for a moment one 
did feel some glamour of the barbaric nobility of 
war. To stand on guard, to make our points and 
parries and lunges, to charge shouting, to place a 
foot on the prostrate foe, withdraw the blade and 
rush forward again, watching and threatening, fear- 
ful and yet terrible — all that was training for real 
fighting, and made the man in khaki one with all 
who have ever fought a field. Bayonet-fighting 
is much less brutal than machine-gunnery, gas, 
shrapnel, liquid-fire, and even bomb-throwing, be- 
cause it is more personal, and human responsibility 
is clear. 

It is more appalling to be killed by the bayonet 
because of the psychological terror of suddenly 
seeing your enemy intent on your death, with fury 
in his face. It seems more polite on the enemy's 
part to kill you by machine-gun, but in reality it is 
only more despicable. A bayonet-fight is an hon- 
est, straightforward fight, and we ought to feel less 
squeamishness about it than about the other. 

I heard of a curious case lately. A machine- 
gunner who was a good Christian was for some rea- 
son or other returned to the ordinary ranks when 
the M.G. division was formed, and he began to do 



II LITTLE SPARTA BARRACKS 75 

bayonet-fighting under a Guards instructor. In 
the course of actual warfare it might easily have 
happened that he should never be in a bayonet- 
fight, but he must be drilled none the less. And 
as he listened to the actualities of the drill he was 
much upset — 

"At the stomach point!" 

*'In, out, on guard!" 

"Long point and short point following!" 

"At the left nipple and right groin, point! 
Cross over! Jab position ready! At the throat, 
jab!" 

He began to be greatly troubled by a conscien- 
tious doubt that had not crossed his mind in the 
swaying of the machine-gun. But a bayonet- 
fighter of crusader faith is nearer to Christ than 
a machine-gunner, though both may be far away. 
The ethics of killing troubled the mind greatly, 
but these ethics may perhaps be more fitly discussed 
when treating of religion in the army generally, 
and in Sparta in particular. 

Matters in which we were like and unlike An- 
cient Sparta. — We were hardily trained, and a man 
was a fool if he were found out doing wrong. We 
sat at public tables (we privates), and whatever 
our civil degree had been we were equal there. I 
have read that the inhabitants of ancient Lacae- 
daemon were allowed to jest at these tables — with- 
out scurrility. In that we were unlike Spartans, 
for our jesting was most scurrilous. But we only 
possessed our wives by stealth, and infrequently, 
and were punished if we stayed too long. If we 



76 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ii 

felt pain we showed it not, and we masked our faces 
whatever our grief. We did not have the iron 
money of the Greeks, but what is the same in effect, 
we had little, and could not import luxuries. We 
did not read; we were enough unto ourselves and 
despised all others. A Spartan is supposed to have 
observed when asked to listen to an imitation of a 
nightingale's song: "No, for I have heard the 
nightingale itself," which showed that in an in- 
tense way the Spartans were not vulgar. We, alas, 
were excessively vulgar. In much, however, we 
were like the Spartans, and we were like them in 
the final thing of all — in battle, where we did not 
yield. But in much also we were unlike. We did 
not run in our nakedness, and our eyes were not 
pure for women. We had not those beautiful 
Greek bodies, but bodies made ugly with clothes 
and care. And we had sins, sins, sins upon our 
brains. We had not the clear intelligence and hap- 
piness of the Greek — the innocence of the morning 
of Europe. The sun was not rising in our souls, 
but setting through storm and fog. All manner 
of things could be said about us and against us, but 
one positive thing redeems the rest. We were 
proved later on in the battle-line, and it was seen 
that we knew how to die, and that it was ever the 
same humanity that went down in the evening in 
France and Belgium as went down in the morning 
at Thermopylae. 



Ill 

SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 

One of the curious pleasures of being stationed 
in London is the luxurious leisurely first hour at 
home when, duty being done, I hasten across the 
Park to the old familiar rooms where so many pages 
have been written and so many bright faces seen. 
Now I cannot entertain friends as of yore, and 
Time, who was always with me, has become against 
me. But it is possible to sit in the old arm-chair 
and look lovingly at familiar panels and the pic- 
tures with which I have lived. 

Still the luxury is not so much in the time of 
chair repose as in an inevitable procedure which 
has become my grace before freedom — the pro- 
cedure of washing ofl the barracks. Indeed a 
taste for living and being which I had not expected 
expresses itself in the divesting of puttees and the 
putting ofif of heavy boots, the peaceful shave in 
warm water — such a contrast to the hurried shave 
in the dark with hard cold water at reveille, the 
washing of close-clipped head so full inwardly of 
beautiful impressions, yet forced to lie on pillows 
where dirty heads innumerable have lain before, 
the warm bath, taking away the poison of the bar- 
rack-room night that clogs into the pores, the seven- 
times washed fingers which have gone a shabby 
grey with the dirty work of washing floors and win- 

77 



78 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

dows, cleaning equipment and rifle, the change into 
fresh white linen, the dab of eau-de-cologne to 
cheeks and throat, the few drops of perfume to 
take away, if possible, the barracks smell. All that 
belongs to the process of washing away the bar- 
racks, putting it away from me, and making me 
fit to come into the presence of friends. 

It is deep ingrained, however. The iron of it 
has entered the soul. How much there is that can- 
not be washed away by these means! Dirt has 
come not only to the body but to the other more 
precious parts. The language which I use, my 
own especial language, has got mixed with matter 
in the wrong place, and the rubbishy phrases and 
torn and tattered expressions of the barrack-room 
seem fatally entangled with mine. I speak like 
a soldier, am coarse like one, have, in fact, a sort 
of khaki brogue, a dialect as cheap as the stuff we 
wear, and then I remain inevitably peremptory 
and brusque in reply. I am annoyed that other 
people do not come to the point sharply in the sol- 
dier's way, and then annoyed at being annoyed — 
for in my heart I love most of all the leisurely and 
charming way of talk and action. 

There is a second process of washing away the 
barracks, and that is to sit in my arm-chair gloomy 
and morose and begin to dream, to dream and melt 
a little, and then perhaps put forth lazily an arm 
and hand that takes a volume of poems from the 
little shelf by the fire. There is nothing more hu- 
manising and sweet to the tired soldier than poetry; 
it woos him back again and comforts him, it is the 
soft hands of the woman he loves caressing him and 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 79 

making him once more precious to himself and 
her. 

The army has enforced a uniform upon the soul 
itself, a prison uniform, on which is written in 
cypher: You are nothing and mean nothing, you 
are no more than dirt; only the army is great, only 
the army has worth. 

And there is a deep hypnotical effect produced by 
the great army machine. Moving in its splendour 
and terror before the eyes it suggests the thought 
to the heart: You have ceased to be anything 
or to count for anything in yourself — only the 
army counts for anything. It suggests it to the 
heart, and the heart in false sleep accepts it in 
the army's presence. But when the army is ab- 
sent the painful process of fighting the illusion 
begins. 

To wash, to dream a little, to read a poem, to be 
caressed, and then certainly to sleep, to discharge 
army from the pores for nights and days, for a 
whole draft leave, for a special leave, for a sick- 
leave — how long, think you, would it take to get it 
out of the system? How long is it going to take for 
us all? For by now every one alive has got some- 
what of it. 

I remember after my first three weeks, when 
I was virtually a prisoner within barrack walls, 
and I obtained my first week-end leave and jour- 
neyed twenty miles in Surrey to London on the top 
of an omnibus, I was mad at the common sights I 
saw, and drank them in like wine, loved every 
civilian, grudged no other young man his black 
attire and precious liberty. I saw the Surrey hills 



8o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iii 

and woods as for the first time sparkling like Eden. 
It was a most intense hour and a half of joy. Joy 
and pain also — for the heart ached. 

My second week-end was not nearly so intense. 
My third and fourth were progressively duller, 
and the 'bus ride was but added boredom, a pro- 
longation of the curse-sodden bricks of the drill- 
yard. I only ached to know myself becoming 
duller, less sensitive to sights and sounds, more a 
possession of the army, more ready to kill and de- 
stroy than to be and to enjoy. 

A great spell has been wrought over the earth, 
and even I have succumbed to it. Yes, you also. 
You and I and all of us. Not only our bodies but 
our souls are in uniform and cannot get out of it. 
And it will take longer eventually to demobilise 
the souls than the bodies. Soldiers from the Front 
know the programme of the bath : the first bath 
and what it will do, the second, the third, the tenth; 
they know the new odours they still exude months 
after getting home, and the rashes and blotches in 
the skin — the war which they have taken in being 
sweated out of them. That is the physical process, 
and a kindred spiritual one also goes on, the getting 
war out of the eyes, out of the spirit. Poetry, love, 
and Nature will perhaps do it at the last; peace and 
sleep and the gentle, quiet beauty of the unspoiled 
universe into which we were born. But I know 
that years and years after peace has been pro- 
claimed we shall be doing what I did to-night be- 
fore taking up the pen — we shall be washing and 
purging it away. 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 8i 

Wellington Barracks are only twenty minutes' 
walk from my home. It might have been my lot 
to have been sent to any other regiment and to have 
completed my training in any other part of Britain, 
but instead I am remarkably and romantically 
near. I can and indeed must lead a double life. 
Whenever I am free from duty I am free to walk 
home, and I am called upon to make marvellous 
quick changes and to re-orient myself spiritually 
on the shortest notice. 

My day's work is coming to an end, the com- 
pany has been dismissed from bayonet-drill, the 
barrack-rooms are full of soldiers, and there is a 
frantic hurly-burly of talk, swearing, singing, and 
clamorous working. Jerry with the massed-bar- 
rel-organ's voice is vocal above all. I am clean- 
ing my boots again, polishing my buttons and hat- 
badge, rubbing up the brasses of my belt with 
priceless bath-brick, laying down my bed to be 
ready for when I shall return, soaping and damp- 
ing my duplicate trousers, and laying them under 
the mattress for to-morrow's crease, tidying up. 
And all the while my ears are passively receptive 
of all manner of indecent talk, swearing, and brutal 
or meaningless nonsense bawled from all sides. 
But at last I emerge, and with cries of "Good- 
byee," called after me or called back to them, I 
make good my escape, pass the scrutinising ser- 
geant at the gate — ^he will not let you out unless 
your appearance keeps up the honour of the regi- 
ment — and I am enfranchised of that dififerent and 
fresher air which is the other side of barrack rail- 



82 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iii 

ings, that good air in which civilians luxuriate. 
A few minutes' quick walking, which is done me- 
chanically, brings me to my own door, and it often 
seems as if I had arrived instantaneously after pass- 
ing the barrack gate, so lost have I been in my own 
set thought. And it is difficult to realise that such 
a slight difference in time and space separates me 
from the inferno of the barrack-room. 

I have tea. I do my hour of washing ofif the 
barracks, dream a little, read a little, and then, it 
may be, prepare to go out to dinner. I may not 
wear evening-dress, but there are certain changes 
to make. Then I go forth to old friends and ac- 
quaintances for love and interest, or curiosity 
and the need to know certain things, as the case 
may be. 

But the contrast between being in a friend's house 
and being in barracks is even greater than that of 
home and barracks. And it is more difficult to 
feel at ease. For one thing, civilian life with its 
different rhythm comes up against the steady, hard 
beating of army time. And as I listen to the lei- 
surely way of talk of those who are free, it is in- 
evitable to reflect that they have all the time in the 
world, whilst my time is limited and fleeting, and 
soon, very soon, I must return to the gates. I 
grudge to friends their sense of time. For indeed 
the pleasure of their company is most intense — 
more intense to me than mine is to them, because 
they have a shallower sense of time. With ac- 
quaintances it is easier, though because of the army 
they seem somewhat more distant and accidental. 
Their life seems somewhat irrelevant. And they 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 83 

for their part are continually being startled by my 
uniform and its plainness. I warn them before I 
come. I am a private in the army and must come 
in khaki — you don't mind? Not in the least — de- 
lighted. Nevertheless I feel strange. 

I sat all one evening in the gloomy grandeur of 
Carlton House Terrace and was entertained by a 
munition manufacturer who despite his trade 
seemed to nurse ideals and to have been made mel- 
ancholy by war. We sat after dinner in a sort of 
ballroom, and a Spanish Count and his wife danced 
the tango to the strains of a phonograph, and the 
other guests applauded, whilst the manufacturer 
with tears in his eyes told me fragments of his 
soul's tragedy — he was laden with the responsibility 
of having killed thousands, of having made a for- 
tune through the death of others, and he saw, as all 
saw at that time, ideals slipping away from the 
nations, and the ideal cause for which we fought 
swallowed up in greed, bitter materialism, and 
hate. And he could not stop the great machines 
which he had set up. The shells grew ever bigger, 
the numbers greater. Yet he felt it was time for 
peace. He thought that Lloyd George did not 
treat sufficiently reverently the possible chances as 
they came along. 

We sat and talked, sadly and seriously, whilst the 
perfect Spaniard made his wife more beautiful and 
we never seemed to notice them. My time of re- 
turning like a Cinderella to dirt and poverty drew 
nearer, but while aware of the strange contrast, I 
felt pleasantly peaceful, for somehow the shell- 
maker had also got something of my sense of time. 



84 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iii 

Before we parted he took me down to the basement 
of his house, stood me before an immense and ter- 
rible-looking chest, and bade me shut my eyes. 
When I opened them again he had slowly opened 
the heavy door of the chest, and I saw in front of 
me a shell eight feet high, and as substantial around 
as the girth of a tree, apex upward, grey and sin- 
ister. ''My tragedy," said he. "This is the latest 
type which I produce." 

It was already late. I said good-bye. I fled 
away down the Duke of York's steps and across the 
mysterious Park, just getting in before the gates 
were shut. And I entered the erstwhile noisy bar- 
rack-room, now dark and stertorian, smelling 
thickly with an atmosphere that could be cut, and 
I stepped over the many beds till I came to mine. 
There I stopped and rapidly undressed, to become 
one with my comrades again. 

I had several invitations to speak in London, 
which I had to refuse, it being against the army 
regulations for a private to appear on a platform 
in the King's uniform, and also against the regula- 
tions that he should appear in civilian attire. I 
tested the matter and was expressly forbidden. 
Nevertheless I could not deny myself the pleasure 
of accepting one invitation, and that was to give 
an address every Friday in Lent at Christ Church. 
I found I could get past the regulations by wearing 
a cassock over my uniform — comprehending the 
service of Caesar within the ampler service of 
God. It was to R. J. Campbell that I owed this 
opportunity and true pleasure. He had read my 
Priest of the Ideal, and would have liked me to be 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 85 

Hampden in his church. So I spoke every week 
on Christian Idealism, and sought in my new life 
and experience examples in which life's barren 
metal ought to be converted into gold. 

The contrast again was strange. For Friday 
is a squalid day in barracks. We use every spare 
moment to clean our barrack-room, and every one 
has to take a share down on his knees scrubbing the 
floor. A huge fire is lit to dry it quickly, every 
one is angry, and our faces get red, our hands most 
grubby. There are always shirkers or suspected 
shirkers. And from an orgy of scrubbing of this 
kind I would tear myself away, sit down ten min- 
utes to think quietly of my subject, and then, with 
knees still damp and face and hands still wet, hasten 
round into Victoria Street to put on the gloomy 
cassock, walk with clanking steps up the nave, and 
give my sermon. 

It must be said that the better part of such a con- 
trast in living made the worse more bearable. 
Moreover, it touched a certain sense of the humor- 
ous and gave some precious salt of wit. 

One night I made one in a joyous party where 
my neighbour on the one hand was an English 
princess, and next night I was a sentry at Bucking- 
ham Palace. Such a fact might, I suppose, be 
cited as evidence of the war making us more demo- 
cratic, but it is not so. War makes us less demo- 
cratic, and many things which were comparatively 
easy for me as a civilian were distinctly awkward 
for me as a private in uniform. Being introduced 
to officers in a drawing-room was always difficult, 
and whilst some treated me most cordially, others, 



86 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iii 

with official decorum, remained amusingly cold 
and distant, and even disinclined to shake hands. 
In the latter period of the war to be a private sol- 
dier was to be of lower social caste, and if a lip- 
service of honour was paid to the common soldier, 
there was nevertheless the consciousness that he was 
without individual power or voice, and was vir- 
tually a slave. I had curious adventures in treat- 
ment outside of barracks. One night General 
A asked to see me, and I went down to Horse- 
guards Avenue in fear and trepidation, was sent in 
to him, rigidly saluted, and stood to attention, but 
he at once put forth his hand, and shook hands and 
smiled, treating me as an equal. On another oc- 
casion I met an exalted official who knew me quite 
well as a writer, and he kept me standing to atten- 
tion on his door-mat and treated me so formally 
that I felt most chilled. One thing is certain, the 
attitude towards the private soldier was a test for 
snobs and gentlemen. 

One night, after a long discussion on the religion 
of the soldier, talked out in the arm-chair ease of 

a private club-room, I crossed the Park with C , 

a dear, enthusiastic clergyman, and as we passed 
the sentry-box at St. James's Palace at midnight a 
soft voice whispered, "Hullo, Graham." I looked 
round in surprise, and it was a room-chum on 
sentry. 

"Don't forget the cake you promised to bring 
us," said he with a grin. 

The priest was a gentleman in the full sense of 
the word. He loved the soldiers, and we stood 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 87 

talking to the sentry for about five minutes in the 
dear, dark dead of night, risking the patrols. 

''Well, God bless you, my boy, God bless you," 
said my friend to the sentry as we passed on. In 
myself I felt a little abashed, because my "room- 
chum" was in barracks of a lewd and godless con- 
versation, and here was the padre saying "God bless 
you." But I learnt afterwards that the padre knew 
his man, and that the soldier was in reality quite 
edified at being blessed. He liked it and felt 
blessed. 

I don't know why it should appear to us that 
with the poor is reality, with the privates in the 
army, with the working-man in civil life. The 
life of the rich, of the cultured, of the officers, of 
the employers must be reality also. It is, I sup- 
pose, because everything depends on the poor, on 
the worker, on the common soldier — the others 
could be dispensed with, they cannot; the others 
are few, they are many. And then the others think 
and talk so much about the life of the soldiers and 
the workers, and we feel how much, nevertheless, 
they are divorced from it. 

I am convinced that this vast life of the poor on 
which rich and lettered subsist cannot be under- 
stood except from within. On the other hand, the 
poor themselves, the workers, and the soldiers know 
nothing, and could not govern the country or be the 
nation by themselves. 

All that they know who He in gaol 
Is that the wall is strong. 



88 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS III 

It is necessary to belong to both worlds to under- 
stand and to be able to do anything of positive 
value. Therefore I would propose to the well- 
wishers of the masses, and especially to young 
clergy and literary men, that they give up the world 
in which they live, and take a job and try to work 
from within. They will find it appallingly diffi- 
cult to live what they preach, and they may fail 
to affect for good the life of their neighbours, but 
they will learn. 

"Where the people are gathered together there 
it is accustomed to stink," wrote Nietzsche. Quite 
so. But the stink proceeds from a ferment which 
is always going on, and out of that ferment are 
born forces which have power to change. 

I often wondered whether the great ferment in 
the ranks meant a revolution after the war. I my- 
self believe a people embodied under a King, even 
were he puny in body and dull of mind, or merely 
his father's son, is as excellent a conception of a na- 
tion as a republic. It is as liberal, it has as many 
Christian possibilities, and evolving as it does along 
the line of limited personal but unlimited national 
power, is at least as democratic. But I need hardly 
say how anti-royal our uneducated masses are be- 
coming. They cannot see the use of a King and 
Queen when a Premier and his wife would serve, 
think "royalty" very expensive to keep up, and that 
it stands in the way of a working-man's England. 
Even in the rank and file of the Guards there seems 
little enthusiasm in singing "God save the King," 
which the soldiers pitifully imagine to be a prayer 
to God to preserve merely the person, the son of 



Ill 



SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 89 



Adam who now wears the crown. And it seems to 
them that '^God save the People" would be a better 
thing to sing — "Not Kings, oh Lord, but men!" 
The ten Americans in our ranks were openly 
amused at the hymns and prayers for "George 
Guelph," as they called him. But then, brought 
up without our traditions and with republican tra- 
ditions, and not having given much thought to the 
matter, such mirth as they had at our expense was 
only natural. Subjects of another State ought not 
to have been enlisted in our army — but, of course, 
necessity and the war broke many rules. As re- 
gards our other revolutionaries, I try to teach them 
that "God save the King" means "God save the 
People," but is a nicer way of saying it — better than 
saying "God save our noble selves"; that the King 
is a symbolic personality, a living symbol of na- 
tionhood, that he is like the colours we salute, not 
valuable because of stuff or pattern, but because 
of a spiritual significance; that to have a President 
is excellent for a business State, but not so excellent 
for a nation with traditions and a complicated in- 
heritance of feudal nobility, many-peopled empire, 
and historic Church; that a King stands in the 
midst of the people, whereas a President goes ahead 
and leads; that the President wears a crown as 
much as any King, but that his crown is too often 
the crown of personal ambition, whereas the King's 
crown is the crown of the dignity of the people as 
a whole. 

Such ideas, however, I found difficult to impart. 
For the world wind was constantly blowing against 
thrones. The ruin of Russia consequent upon the 



90 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iii 

Revolution was the only object-lesson in current 
history, but the confusion of Press opinions left men 
too confused regarding Russia to be able to say any- 
thing of her. The working-man looked forward 
to an England with a President. 

We held the privilege of guarding the person 
of the King, and that is why we, above other sol- 
diers, should have had a simple but sound notion 
of what royalty means. The officers no doubt un- 
derstood, being as they are the flower of Britain 
and of many noble families. In their attitude to 
the King breathes the atmosphere of Eton. But 
they are enough unto themselves. That perfect re- 
straint which marks an officer with his men comes 
too naturally and is not entirely a virtue. If every 
officer would only make an effort to teach his men 
the real things, the value of our five Spartan regi- 
ments could be quintupled — they could be con- 
verted into living power. The fact is, the whole 
system of training needs to be overhauled with 
reference to higher national values. Already, the- 
oretically, esprit de corps is accepted as the most 
valuable quality to be cultivated. The fact that 
"those who guard the King never retire," the glori- 
ous military traditions, are duly enforced. But 
the purely military aspect of esprit de corps ought 
to be supplemented in many ways. 

"I could not think of a greater privilege than to 
mount guard over the King. It would always be 
something to look back upon, to have been on 
guard at Buckingham Palace," said a friend to me. 
I agreed. Every one who serves the King loyally, 
even in the smallest way, honours and preserves 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 91 

something more than the mere person of roy- 
alty. To be a Guard should be to be consecrated 
not only to the King, but to the nation through 
him. 

Kings and Queens cannot themselves save them- 
selves. And if they could they would not be 
worth saving. But we can save ours if it is worth 
while — and not merely as "a golden link of Em- 
pire," but as the crown of splendid nationhood. 

To be put on Royal guard is the crown of train- 
ing. As far as parade is concerned, it is the sol- 
dier's greatest ordeal. No doubt there are many 
who would rather be in a bayonet charge than 
"mount Buck," and frequently a man who "bobs 
on it," as the saying is, gets a comrade to do it for 
him for a few shillings. For an exchange of du- 
ties is nearly always allowed. Old hands, how- 
ever, who have done it five or six times, see nothing 
difficult in it, for they know exactly what is ex- 
pected of them. 

There are hours to spend washing and drying 
equipment, polishing the brasses, squaring the pack, 
fitting the braces and cartridge-pouches, the belt, 
the water-bottle, the haversack. Our regiment 
prided itself on the use of white equipment, which 
through much washing had become like alabaster. 
Each strap had a surface as of beautifully ironed 
linen. The brasses, under the influence of brasso, 
became like little mirrors, flashing at all points of 
the person. The rifle had to be luminous, the 
bayonet unimpeachable, the trousers creased cor- 
rectly, the tunic without spot, hat-badge perfectly 



92 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

poised like a star, hat put on squarely with peak 
down over the eyes. One must also know some- 
thing of the ritual of guard-mounting and the mys- 
tery of open order march. The N.C.O.'s get into 
a frantic state of nervous tension. The drill-ser- 
geant who carries the colours and at the same time 
as he marches shouts the drill orders for himself 
and the escort — On the left, left form: forward! — 
had a perturbed mien which caused my eyes and 
my lips to murmur, "Alexander of Macedon was 
a great man certainly, but that's no reason for 
smashing the furniture." Even our R.S.M., a per- 
fect Malvolio, seemed troubled. The officers, 
however, take things much more calmly, and even 
when making mistakes do so with an air that makes 
good the deficiency. When I did my first guard 
the inspection was made by the neatest and sharp- 
est officer who ever took charge of the battalion 
whilst I was there, and he did it well — there is no 
doubt of that. It took a long time, and all the 
while the regimental band played soft music. We 
were standing like wood, the lieutenant and the 
R.S.M. looked from one to another with beady 
eyes, and some one else with the black book was 
writing down the reprimands as they occurred. It 
reminded me somehow of the moment of Bassanio's 
choice, and I fully expected to make "a swan-like 
end, fading in music." But I passed muster — only 
Malvolio pulled the peak of my hat a little further 
down over my eyes as he passed, his object being 
to make me lift my head higher, I think. One of 
the Americans was next to me, and he whispered 
after the inspecting officers had passed by, "What 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 93 

do you think of it, eh, to mount guard over the 
King? It's the proudest moment of my life." He 
understood the matter emotionally, and did not 
talk of George Guelph now. 

It is quite right that the Guard mounting should 
be taken thus seriously. For the occasion is one 
where honour is expressed in care and smartness. 
And the honour is national. It struck me, how- 
ever, that a great deal of the impression was lost 
by the cheap airs rendered by the band. 

A crowd of accidental passers-by collects. The 
old guard at the Palace marches into position to 
be relieved, the new guard, preceded by the band 
and the colours of the regiment, marches out of 
barracks. Off we go to a jingling music-hall air, 
and a sense of mortification steals into the heart that 
the pipes have not preceded us. For the pipes are 
always national, or at least in good taste, whereas 
these wretched ragtime songs of the brass band put 
us on the level of some sort of South American Re- 
public or less. If the music be wrong the whole 
ritual is wrong, and the other impressiveness counts 
for nought. 

However, be that as it may, we present arms, 
we approach in a goose-step, poising uplifted toes, 
we exchange, and the old guard marches away, 
leaving us in possession and at our posts. 

We do two hours' sentry-go and have four hours 
off. It makes four spells in the twenty-four hours, 
and there is nothing difficult about it. It is quiet 
duty, affording at least during the night hours time 
for thought and reflection. 

In the daytime it is merely necessary to keep 



94 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

alert, to present arms to members of the Royal 
Family and to the battalion should it march past, 
and to salute officers and armed parties. At night 
nothing happens: one has the company of the stars 
and the glamour of motor-lights racing through 
the Park. Fifteen paces to march up, turn, and 
fifteen paces to march down, turn, fifteen paces 
again, fifteen paces, halt, order arms, a pace to the 
rear, stand at ease. . . . 

It is very pleasant to say poetry to oneself whilst 
marching to and fro. Two lines of Gray's Elegy 
will take the sentry up and the other two lines of 
the verse will bring him back again. One verse 
of Omar will take him up, another will take him 
down. And at night, when the moonlight dis- 
guises with theatrical grandeur the shoddy ma- 
sonry of the Palace, the noble lines of English come 
aptly to the mind and guide the steps : "Whatever 
it is your lot to do in this war try to live nobly, 
make a heaven of hell, go inward." So I often 
whisper to myself — often whisper in vain. 

Whilst of? duty and lying in full equipment in 
the guard-house, this night of my guard, the Ger- 
mans came over and, prom, prom, posh, the ma- 
roons shot forth, and hard upon them the metallic 
reports of many air-craft guns. 

"Stand to!" 

We all get up and stand ready with our rifles for 
any emergency. Every one grumbles. But the 
guard-room fire blazes merrily, and the guns keep 
up a joyful hubbub. Suddenly some one says, "No 
one can persuade Queen Alexandra to leave her 
bedroom and go down to the cellars. She says that 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 95 

if she's meant to die by a bomb she can't save her- 
self by going to a cellar." All approve of this fal- 
lacious argument, especially the old soldiers who 
have used the formula in the trying circumstances 
of the trenches. Then another says he hopes a 

bomb will come and blast them all to . 

"What good have they ever done us?" Then 
comes much more silly talk about revolution, plen- 
tifully interlarded with that bad language by which 
a soldier seeks to prove his manhood. 

Just before the all-clear bugles I march out with 
the relief and resume my post once more. Once 
more, fifteen up, fifteen down, and the moonlight 
streaming across the way. In a moment of en- 
nui I notice some words vaguely scratched on a 
pillar, done by a sentry with his bayonet on some 
past night in the dark and empty hours when there 
is no one to see what is done. And these were the 
words: 

Roll on the Duration. 

Roll on Peace. 

Roll on the Revolution. 

And in those lines I felt expressed how exasperat- 
ing and boring the Great War had become. 

However, ho-ho, ha-ha, the bicyclist buglers are 
tearing past, giving the all-clear signal at last, and 
the searchlights break across the sky and begin to 
make mysterious crosses and lettering in the 
heavens. The flagrant beam stands a long while, 
as if it has become a permanency, and then sud- 
denly moves, swings round, whilst another creeps 
towards it. Certain messages are being conveyed, 
but none can say what they are. 



96 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

En avant, then; fifteen up, turn, fifteen down, 
turn. . . . 

Buckingham Palace is an ugly building. It 
is not fit for the King and Queen of England to 
live in, and if it were not so large and imposing it 
would be pulled down. But a constant means of 
grace in our barrack life was the Chapel, opposite 
which so often we lined up for drill. It is beauti- 
ful exteriorly, and I wonder why we cannot keep 
our building in keeping with it. Our barracks are 
decent, though in need of repair. But in our near 
vicinity behold Buckingham Palace, Queen Anne's 
Mansions, and some sort of Diamond Jubilee red- 
brick commercial horror climbing up to make a 
background for the Chapel. 

But the Chapel is beautiful. Our religious life 
ought to have been good with such a temple in our 
barrack yard. 

I spent most of my Sundays at home, but on the 
three or four occasions when duty held me at bar- 
racks, I went to religious service at the Chapel. 
Once I paraded for Church of England service, 
but afterwards became officially a Presbyterian — 
joined the true religion, as the Jocks call it. On 
free Sundays I went civilly to church. 

The great contrast in the two types of service was 
that in the military chapel you felt you had Eng- 
land with you in church, even if the service were 
dull, but that in the civil church, no matter how 
full of life the service might be, you felt as if some- 
how the real base of England was lacking. In the 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 97 

ordinary church in war-time you had a gathering 
of stray units who somehow did not belong organ- 
ically to England. But in the military chapel you 
had, willy-nilly, the physical driving power of the 
nation. England was present even if England did 
not sing, and England's knees were in the pews even 
if England did not pray. 

Nevertheless, I have not the slightest hesita- 
tion in saying that I would infinitely rather go 
to any civil church than to any military one, 
and that for me the Church parade has been one 
of the unpleasant parts of this enforced military 
life. 

Still, the military has the national chorus. It 
has in live flesh and blood what Westminster Ab- 
bey has in live walls and memories. And our 
Chapel is vocal from its walls also. It is alive with 
sacred fresco, and looks more like a Byzantine 
cathedral than an English church. It is all 
adorned, all colour, all expression. And all is in 
memory of the brave who have died. There is not 
a tint or a figure that has been added in the mere 
spirit of ornament. All that is in it is conse- 
crated glory. For that reason it would be good 
to purge it of the regimental band which supplies 
the place of organ, but has no true function in it, 
give the chaplain leave to go, and then try to realise 
what the beautiful building full of soldiers could 
mean. 

How many of those who guard the King have 
died for England, have carried to the Altar the 
complete sacrifice! How many poor soldiers in 



98 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

our many wars have died on foreign fields and been 
forgotten! These crimsons on the walls are their 
crimsons. If they could sing, their voices would 
swell the chorus. Anonymous England! The 
soldiers' Church! If some one could teach the 
soldiers to sing the Te Deum or even "Holy! Holy! 
Holy!" as it should be sung, meaning it, then all the 
other ranks would sing, behind, on the left, on the 
right, all who died before we came as well as we 
who wear the uniform now, and England would 
have a voice again. 

But there is ever a fettering influence at work. 
There is one great mistake about these beautiful 
walls. It is that definite names have been in- 
scribed on them — ^the names of a dozen or so offi- 
cers of various generations, and the finer thing has 
been missed, of leaving it all anonymous — for 
Jesus' sake. 

It is sad to see St. George and the Dragon merely 

in memory of George M , scholar, sportsman, 

friend, and the rest, instead of all the Georges. 
Even as I write comes news of a George who has 
died in the trenches, and the crimson of his blood 
needs a ray in our memory and in the church. 
Cannot all these definite names on the chapel wall 
be erased, or else all the thousands who have died in 
the Guards be put on? 

But we are all in the pews and the regimental 
band will not begone, and here comes the large 
and jovial and rather popular chaplain, a hearty 
old man of the world who evidently hates cant of 
any kind, and has no corner in his heart for con- 
scientious objectors. 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 99 

A light did shine 

In thy rosy rubicund face 

Which showed an outward visible sign 

Of an inward spiritual grace. 

His sermon begins with, "Why halt ye between 
two opinions?" and ends with, "The service of 
Caesar is the service of God." 

I think that in the army that is generally be- 
lieved, but I had never heard a clergyman say it 
before. 

On parade in the weekly routine we looked so 
well that no one would have thought it shame to 
identify us with a service higher than that of the 
King. Did not the Christians in civil attire look 
very much down at heel compared with us? And 
in patience and suflfering the soldier of the King 
treads a thornier way than the average professing 
Christian. Lord Hugh Cecil remarks in his study 
of the army: "The citizen becomes a soldier, and 
as a soldier thinks nothing too much to do and to 
suffer, and in all that he gives his country walks 
not unworthily in the steps of Christ. But when 
he has once become the State's instrument without 
independent will or life of his own, the State uses 
him, not for Christ's work. . . ." 

That is where the cleavage occurs. 

There is much beauty in the symbols of the army; 
the salute, the presenting of arms, and the rest, and 
they are expressive of the service of the King or of 
the State. A salute means: I recognise your au- 
thority, and we are all bound together under the 
King. Arms presented, in which, as it were, the 
rifles are held not as ready to be fired but as ready 



loo A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ill 

to be given to some one else, means: My arms 
belong to you, and though I wield a weapon of 
ofifence, I do not wield it for myself, but for you 
and for the King. The colours, crimson as with 
the blood of those who have died rather than flee, 
are the symbol of the soul of the regiment. They 
must not appear without an escort. When the 
colours are brought on parade the band plays, or 
should play, low music, as it were the music of the 
heart; we salute or present arms, and even civilians 
raise their hats. The colours fly not only for the 
living, but for all who have died in the regiment 
for the King, not only as an augury of battles to be 
won, but as a token of every field of the past. All 
bugle-calls denote that a soldier's life is a watch 
and vigil. He does not go by the clock, or claim 
any time as his own, but gives obedience instant 
upon the demand of his superior. The bugle-call 
is the voice of the King. 

The King is a living, moving symbol, and means 
England. He does not stand for himself, but for 
all of us. The Queen, being the bride of the King, 
is the symbol of the soul and the honour of Eng- 
land. The nation is bound to the King in duty, 
to the Queen in chivalry. Honour is universally 
paid to the soldier, because in putting ofif his own 
clothes and putting on those of the King, he gives 
up his own free will to be obedient to the country's 
will, and he sacrifices his birthright of freedom, 
taking up voluntarily the yoke of sacrifice. When 
a soldier dies, the Union Jack is laid on his body 
in token that he died in the service of the State, and 
that the State takes the responsibility for what it 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN loi 

ordered him to do as a soldier. On the other hand, 
in the Union Jack may be seen the mingling of 
crosses, that is, of sacrifice. The reversed arms at 
a funeral are an acknowledgment of the shame of 
killing. Death puts the rifle to shame, and the re- 
versal of the barrel is a fitting sign of reverence. 
It provides part of the atmosphere of military 
mourning. The shots fired in the air are fired at 
imaginary devils, which might get into men's hearts 
at such a moment as the burial of a comrade-in- 
arms. An old superstition has it that the doors of 
men's hearts stand ajar at such times, and devils 
may easily get in. The Last Post is the Nunc 
Dimittis of the dead soldier. It is the last bugle- 
call. As you stand in heavy cloaks about the new- 
dug grave in which the dead comrade is lying, it 
seems as if in a sepulchral way he also must hear it 
— as it were the last voice of all earthly, persist- 
ently, persistently calling. It is the last, but it 
gives promise of reveille — of the great reveille 
which ultimately the Angel Gabriel ought to blow. 

God Save the King! — The National Anthem 
does not merely mean God save the Monarch, but 
God save the State embodied in him. It is a beau- 
tiful way of asking salvation as a nation. 

All these are the symbols of the service of the 
King, and, rightly understood, show the ideal side 
of rendering to Caesar the things which are 
Caesar's. They ought to provide the true atmos- 
phere of the army, showing the army at its highest 
and best. 

Beautiful, however, as they are, they ought al- 
ways to give way before the greater symbols of the 



I02 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS in 

Church. Within the church there is no saluting; 
officers and men are equal at the altar-rail, par- 
taking in communion. Even the singing of the 
National Anthem, if over-stressed, may be out of 
place in church, and nothing is more w^rong than 
interrupting a man who is kneeling before God in 
order to make him stand up to sing "God Save the 
King," For the same reason the idea that curates 
and young priests ought, against their will, to be 
made to join the army is mistaken. The sym- 
bols of God are higher than the symbols of the 
King. 

Besides the serious aspect of the soldier's duty 
there is a good deal of humour in the daily round, 
which begins with "Hey, Johnny Cope," and ends 
with "Donald Blue." ^ Some one in the army al- 
lotted hymns to each act in the soldier's life. 
Thus: 

Reveille "Christians, Awake!" 

First Parade . . . "Art thou weary, art thou languid ?" 
Breakfast .... "Meekly wait and murmur not." 
Sergeant-Major's Parade "When he cometh, when he 

Cometh." 
Swedish Drill (P.T.) . "Here we suffer grief and pain." 
Route March . . . "Onward! Christian Soldiers." 

Dinner "Come, ye Thankful People, 

Come." 
Rifle Drill .... "Go, labour on." 
Officers Lecture . . "Tell me the old, old story." 
Dismiss "Praise God, from whom all bless- 
ings flow." 

1 The pipes blow reveille at Wellington Barracks to the tune of 
"Hey, Johnny Cope, are ye waukin' yet?" For "Lights out" they play 
"Donald Blue," sometimes parodied in the words, "Oh, good Lord, my 
rifle's rusty." 



Ill SOLDIER AND CIVILIAN 103 

Tea "What means this eager, anxious 

throng?" 
Free for the Night . . "Oh Lord, how happy should we 

be!" 
Last Post .... "Safely, safely gathered in." 
Lights Out .... "Peace, perfect peace." 
Inspection of the Guard "Sleep on, beloved." 



IV 

ESPRIT DE CORPS 

I LISTENED one day to the reminiscences of one who 
had been regimental sergeant-major. As far as 
my memory serves, let me record his most interest- 
ing words : 

"I was born of a Scottish family. As most of 
you know, I joined the army in the ranks. As a 
lad of eighteen I enlisted and went to Little Sparta. 
I had the hard time there which all of you had, 
and I assure you I did not escape without being 
once thrown into the guard-room or having to fight 
one of the old soldiers to show what stufif I was 
made of. In due course the squad in which I 
trained 'passed out,' and I went up to barracks in 
London. I did very well there, and was a pattern 
of smartness. I very soon got my stripes. I be- 
came that very hard-worked person, a lance-cor- 
poral, and was at every one's beck and call — the 
hardest months of my soldiering career. But I 
did so well that I was sent back to Little Sparta 
as a drill-instructor, and it was my task to take 
over squads of raw recruits such as I had myself 
but lately been, and teach them and drill them into 
being soldiers. I 'passed out' many squads with 
credit, and then again was ordered up to London. 
I had returned as full corporal, and I was then 
made lance-sergeant. I was promoted in course 

104 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 105 

of time to be sergeant, and ultimately to be regi- 
mental sergeant-major. So I've been through all 
the routine. I have a very large experience of 
army life and of the main things in it — discipline 
and esprit de corps. 

"Little Sparta is a place of very hard discipline, 
the training is hard and no faults are overlooked. 
But I came from a Scottish home where discipline 
w^as hard, and I cannot say I found the discipline 
of the barracks harder than that of home. I was 
punished, and, as I have said, did some extra drills, 
and was put in the guard-room. I had a fight, but 
the only things I really resented were the humiliat- 
ing personal remarks which the corporals and ser- 
geants seemed to like to indulge in. And I can 
say without any reserve that no one should ever ad- 
dress remarks to a soldier which are humiliating, 
because it creates a desire for revenge which is 
fatal to the preservation of a true esprit de corps. 
Injustice also, of course, is another thing which is 
intolerable. Instructors ought always to treat their 
men as if they were men, not as if they were a sort 
of lower species of animal. The chief fault of 
those in authority nowadays is that they think too 
much of themselves and too little of the men under 
them. Now it should be an axiom that you can 
never think too much of or do too much for those 
who are under you. Training recruits is not just 
breaking in horses. It can be the highest possible 
work for King and Country. 

"When I came up to our London barracks I 
must say I was surprised to observe the differ- 
ence in discipline. Here, compared with Little 



io6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS IV 

Sparta, everything was slack. On the first evening 
I was much struck by seeing a splendid sergeant 
of the King's guard in full dress playing skittles 
at the back of the canteen — with a set of privates. 
Such intimacy I could never have thought possible. 
I saw here much drunkenness and unpunctuality, 
squaring of punishments, gambling, and the like. 
This was, of course, many, many years ago, and I 
do not know what it is like now. Soon I got my 
stripes, and I decided to be regimental from the 
first. On my first morning I told an orderly that 
he had left the slops which ought to be emptied first 
thing each morning, and that he must empty them 
at once. He said 'all right,' and went away and 
did something else, practically ignoring me. So 
I had him at once marched to the guard-room, and 
he was very severely punished. After that it was 
seen that I was not a person to be trifled with, and 
my commands were always obeyed. I never, never 
played cards with the privates in the barrack- 
room; I kept rigidly teetotal. If comrades drew 
me into the canteen and they had their beer, I had 
my ginger-beer, and I kept my temper and smiled, 
however much I was chafifed. All sorts of tricks 
were played on other N.C.O.'s, and the slacker 
they were the more tricks were played on them — 
such tricks as whitewashing their tunics or throw- 
ing their clothes out of the window. I don't say 
that my example improved the state of things, for 
it is impossible for one man to make much differ- 
ence, but I was that sort of man by temperament. 

"It was a change for me when I was sent back 
to Little Sparta as a drill-instructor, to take charge 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 107 

of squads of new recruits and make them into sol- 
diers. I think the two years I spent this way were 
the happiest years of my life. I renewed my faith 
in army life at the fount. I rejoiced in the glitter 
and sparkle of the N.C.O.'s on parade, in the snap 
and finish in the drill, in the regularity and so- 
briety of the men, in the sports, in the emulation in 
hardihood and smartness, in the absence of corrup- 
tion and of slackness. Little Sparta suited me, and 
it was somewhat of a shock again when promoted 
to lance-sergeant I returned to the easy-going Lon- 
don barracks. Still, I pursued my old way and 
was reserved with privates, never gambled with 
them, was firm and stood no nonsense, but always 
cheery and happy all the same. In due course I 
was made drill-sergeant, and was a most popular 
N.C.O. all the time. 

"All this was in the second battalion of the regi- 
ment, and at that time we outshone the premier 
battalion very considerably both in discipline and 
in drill, and there was a desire on the part of the 
command to smarten it up a bit. With that in 
view, a keen and stern adjutant was appointed, and 
I was brought there as regimental sergeant-major. 
Then in a way I thought I had my chance. There 
were five years in front of me as R.S.M., and in 
that time I would turn a slack battalion into one 
that was as smart as any one could wish. The ad- 
jutant was a proper martinet, and I worked in with 
him, being as regimental and strict as I knew how, 
remaining, however, always just, though often, I 
admit, harsh. I know now that in any case the 
sergeant-major has always to take his tone from 



io8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

the adjutant, and that a hard adjutant must always 
mean a hard sergeant-major. And from being a 
most popular man I became the most unpopular 
person in barracks. But I made a smart regiment. 
I had always a very good word of command, clear, 
stern, far-reaching, and now I cultivated the spe- 
cial terrible voice of a regimental sergeant-major. 
I brought the men to a high state of perfection in 
drill, and could drill them at last without using a 
word, merely by opening and shutting my eyes. 
But I had seen other sergeant-majors have as great 
success on the parade-ground as I, and that did not 
content me. I wanted to have all the other side of 
their life as smart, and I took care to arrange mat- 
ters so that under my authority it was impossible 
to square sergeants for punishment. I knew what 
every one in the barracks was doing all the while, 
and I stopped the intimacies of privates and 
N.C.O.'s, curtailed gambling, put an end to the 
unpunctualities at the gate, which could formerly 
have been squared by a tip to the sergeant of the 
guard. 

''AH the while, however, I was thinking about 
my job, and was not altogether content with the 
state of my battalion. I was still very unpopular; 
there was a great deal of ill-feeling. Some 
N.C.O.'s had got themselves transferred from the 
battalion in order to get out of my ken. Pressure 
was brought to bear to get rid of me, but the au- 
thorities approved of me. I did not, however, 
altogether approve of myself, and I felt ill at ease 
watching my perfect battalion do everything per- 
fectly whilst hating me all the time. 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 109 

"The adjutant left us and a kinder one came in 
his place. My five years passed, and I was due for 
a change also. But I asked to remain, and I de- 
termined on a change of tactics. Whilst remain- 
ing as hard as ever with the non-commissioned of- 
ficers, I began to treat the men more kindly. If I 
saw a man doing a thing he ought not to be doing 
whilst ofif parade, I looked the other way and 
*saw nothing,' but I never let the N.C.O.'s ofif. 
But this policy did not succeed. For then the 
N.C.O.'s took their revenge on the men, and 
learned all manner of tricks of deception. In 
short, my policy begot a great deal of disloyalty to 
me among the N.C.O.'s. We were not working 
together at all. The upshot of all was that I had 
to give up my old point of view entirely — of ab- 
solute, unquestioned obedience and a regiment 
ruled as with a rod of iron, and I learned more and 
more to interest myself in the personal lives of 
N.C.O.'s as well as privates, and to win them to my 
side by bonds of interest and affection. I learned 
that it is necessary to gain the confidence of a bat- 
talion, and not only to command them, but to lead 
them. I think perhaps in my lifetime the necessi- 
ties have all changed. My first way was the old- 
fashioned way, and was good enough a hundred 
years ago. But something different is needed by 
men to-day. They won't stand the old martinet 
style of treatment, and quite right, too. A correct 
discipline must be obtained, and you cannot get it 
without absolute obedience. But a fine discipline 
needs a warm glowing esprit de corps, and to get 
that you must also win men's hearts." 



no A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

The old sergeant-major's experience had a coun- 
terpart in our own. When we for our part left 
Little Sparta and came to London we were glad 
of the easier ways, and it eased our hearts to find 
the corporals and the sergeants reduced to the level 
of human beings, sleeping and living in the same 
barrack-room. And we realised that when a non- 
commissioned officer had been drunk once or twice 
in the presence of the privates in the same room 
he has not the authority over them that he is sup- 
posed to have, still less when he plays cards and 
wins or loses money from them. It was amusing 
to hear them cheeked and flatly disobeyed — in fun. 
"After you've done your firing you'll be a tofif, my 
boy," they said. "You'll have your midnight 
pass. You can go to the halls twice a week and 
spoon with yer girl in the Park." We were quite 
ready to be toffs. The relaxed discipline was a 
considerable relief. I noticed that all the men 
grew more confident in themselves, and that the 
cowed look seemed to leave their faces. The mov- 
ing life of London fused their lives. At the same 
time, however, most of the men seemed to fall off a 
little in good looks and bodily health. Excite- 
ments and late nights undid what the peace and 
dullness of Little Sparta evenings had achieved. 
Men slept in the barrack-rooms in the afternoon 
— "got down to it," and wakened up in time for 
tea and the razzle-dazzle of the evening. Then 
we lived in a slacker way. The rooms and the 
beds were far from the cleanliness of Little Sparta. 
We were not marched once a week to the Trio- 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS in 

juncta-tn-uno-hath, nor inspected to see if our 
bodies were clean. And three in a bath is better 
than no bath at all. In London you bathed when 
and where you liked. In the barrack-rooms at 
nights windows supposed to be kept open were su- 
perstitiously kept shut, and you could taste and 
smell and handle the atmosphere produced. There 
were the stale leavings of supper on plates, men 
with dirty bodies, sometimes men drunk, sometimes 
men sick, a huge fire burning, an overcrowded 
room. 

The standard of smartness seemed reduced, both 
in personal appearance and in the way one kept 
bed and locker. There was one "sin against the 
Holy Ghost," and that was having the handle of 
one's entrenching tool dirty. The metal part of 
this tool had to be like silver; the wooden part 
had to be polished with sandpaper till it was white 
and smooth as ivory. And it was only a pick to 
be used eventually in digging trenches. Punish- 
ments were showered thick and fast, but were taken 
lightly and done lightly. The best men fared 
equally with the worst. If you did a punishment 
you felt a bit of a fool realising that sixpence might 
have got you off. To do an extra drill was called 
"to pay a drill," and it was not uncommon for the 
sergeant to say to you just after the sentence had 
been pronounced by the officer: "Will you pay it 
now or pay it at four o'clock?" and you could dis- 
charge the matter there and then. An old sergeant 
once propounded this pleasant theory: "Wben 
your name is in the book for a punishment-drill 



112 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

that in itself is sufficient punishment. There's no 
need for a fellow to go tramping round the bar- 
rack-square for an hour." 

When the soldier's weekly wage was raised it 
came in very handy for paying his way, but there 
was rather a temptation to N.C.O.'s to bring you 
before an officer for a trifling offence, and so get 
you down in the book for a drill, and sometimes 
when the officer said one you found it had been 
entered in the book as two. One felt annoyed, but 
then sergeants and men were on very good swear- 
ing terms. We all rather admired B , the vol- 
unteer from the Far West, who insisted on doing 
his punishment-drills when awarded, and said, 
"I'll take my medicine; I think it will be good for 
me." 

Our training was largely a matter of preparation 
for active service, and some of it, such as the bomb- 
ing course, was excellent in itself and very interest- 
ing; others, such as the gas-drill, were not so pleas- 
ant. The only things I was complimented on 
were bayonet-fighting and bomb-throwing — which 
rather tickled me, being of a Christian tempera- 
ment, and more ready to be killed than to kill. 
In drill I remained "a dizzy devil," the sergeant- 
major remarked. But I did not get into trouble 
whilst doing guards, though I devised several in- 
genious tricks for reading poetry whilst walking 
up and down on sentry. Being on sentry at the 
barracks from two to four in the morning, or at 
some such time, was always rather thrilling to me. 
To march up and down and to know the moonlight 
glimmered on your bayonet and that you and all 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 113 

the circumstances of your post looked larger and 
grander than by day was somewhat of an enchant- 
ment. These things, however, appealed to differ- 
ent temperaments differently. I remember my 
surprise one night when the sergeant who should 
have marched us to our posts was fast asleep. I 
went to relieve my man, and he said, "You'll find 
a newspaper in a bit of board in the sentry-box, I 
should get down to it if I were you; there's nobody 
about." I never found sleep prized so much as in 
the army; there it is a material commodity like 
roast beef. You "get down to it" with the solid 
pleasure of satisfying an appetite or a lust. Sleep 
becomes a bad habit like the overuse of tobacco or 
drink. 

I found in London that whilst in charge of a 
foul-mouthed, unsympathetic, and brutal sergeant- 
major we were a very wretched company in our 
drill and general turn-out, but when this man was 
reduced in rank and we were given to a capable, 
clean-minded, and sympathetic young fellow, who 
knew his work well, we made the most extraor- 
dinary progress. After three weeks, from being 
the worst we became almost the best, and we made 
a most pleasing show in the great inter-company 
drilling competition on the barrack-square. 

Our hours of drill were very light compared 
with those of Little Sparta. Our day was gener- 
ally over at three, and sometimes at noon. Those 
living within a reasonable proximity to barracks 
could get sleeping-out passes, which enabled them 
to wash and dress and do many things at home. 
Those who had no homes had usually their girls 



114 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

and the Park, or the kitchens or servants' parlour 
of some great house to which they adjourned. 

The men's sweethearts, and sometimes one man 
would have several, kept them in cigarettes and 
sweets, cakes, and often money. So a man would 
say, "I must meet her to-night, it's her pay-day." 
When the girl was a munition-worker it can be un- 
derstood how the tables had been turned during the 
war, and she was the rich one and could afiford to 
treat him. When men were on duty their girls 
would come to the railings and ask to see them, 
and often the men would return with pleasing 
presents, which greatly contributed to our suppers. 
Some of the men walked out with servants from 
the big houses of the west, especially Park Lane, 
and I often heard well-known hostesses mentioned 
by the men. It was rather amusing to think that 
whilst the quality had been eating dinner up above, 
a burly soldier had been waiting in the kitchen be- 
low stairs for his share in the same. He had his 
share in due course, and was not without his glass 
of champagne upon occasion. Well certainly 
those below stairs are as human as those above. 
One day in the wash-house a man said to me, 
"Didn't I have the pleasure of waiting on you one 

night at Mrs. C 's?" And he mentioned one 

or two other guests. "Ah, yes," said I. "What 
a pleasant evening it was I It's curious how we 
meet again, isn't it?" whereupon we became very 
good barrack friends. 

Life in barracks during the war exhibited all 
the abnormalities of a strange time. More re- 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 115 

cruits were rushed through the course of training 
in a few years than ordinarily passed through in a 
quarter of a century; whereas formerly the ser- 
eeants and drill-sereeants and the rest would know 
infallibly every soldier's face in the battalion, now 
the faces changed so rapidly, what with new men 
coming: in and men who had been wounded return- 
ing, never more than one in three could be recog- 
nised. The control which before the war must 
have been more personal was now conventional. 
No such condition of excellence as prevailed under 
the sway of that ex-sergeant-major who gave his 
reminiscences could obtain now. All the weeds of 
the system were growing; all the weeds that ever 
showed themselves in the garden. So it was pos- 
sible to see what were the problems in front of a 
practical idealist should he wish to make us per- 
fect within as perfect without. We needed an- 
other Hildebrand to shake and purify us like a 
mighty wind, though not a Hildebrand with a 
mere passion for reform, but a wise and experi- 
enced one, such as that mellowed R.S.M. who 
talked so well on what had been and what might be. 
I have no doubt myself that the best virtue to 
cultivate in a regiment is esprit de corps. On that 
and not on fear and punishment and bluster should 
discipline be founded. A higher sense of esprit 
de corps would have caused a good deal of that 
slackness so comforting to civilians in khaki to dis- 
appear, but at the same time it would have procured 
more liberties and better social conditions, which 
would have more than made up for what was lost 
in the other direction. Of course by esprit de corps 



ii6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

is not meant that narrow pride in the regiment 
which at one time caused the Jocks to fight the Bill 
Browns in every public-house about Victoria Sta- 
tion. It should acknowledge the splendour of 
brother regiments. To act under the influence of 
esprit de corps means to act in the spirit of your 
regiment, and if you speak of the larger esprit de 
corps, national esprit de corps, it means to act in 
the spirit of the nation to which you belong. It is 
to use the common sense of your battalion and your 
country, and live according to that. 

When a man has put on the King's uniform he 
has by that act resigned individual striving after 
perfection. His perfection has become locked up 
in his relationship to his fellows. He still wants 
freedom, but he wants it in a different way. Per- 
fect freedom does not mean isolation but perfect 
organisation — a place in a perfect system where 
every one is free and yet every one is instinctively 
disciplined, where no one hinders any one else but 
every one by his very existence is helping every one 
else. 

The mushroom army of the war was a place 
where for most of the finer issues every man was 
hindering every one else. There was only the be- 
ginning of a fine esprit de corps. Fear and punish- 
ment were still in control and seemed to be the su- 
preme appeal for the establishment of absolute 
obedience. The prison wall shed its baleful 
shadow on the young soul. The evil of institution- 
alism was the evil of the army, and whole regiments 
had the blank faces of institute children, whole 
regiments were stunted, were dried up, were in 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 117 

corporal decay solely owing to no spirit, or little 
spirit or a wrong conception of what discipline 
should rest upon. 

The ideal for a regiment is that every man 
should amplify every other man's regimental per- 
sonality. The famous deeds of men in the regi- 
ment in days gone by should be known equally with 
the famous deeds of the present war. The story 
of a bayonet-charge, of a desperate stand, of a pa- 
tient defence against terrible odds, of a long and 
arduous march; the victories of the sports field, 
of the boxing ring, of football leagues, as far as they 
are known enlarge the life of the regiment and im- 
prove the spirit. Poems and rhymes written by 
officers and men, songs sung, lectures given — all 
these help esprit de corps. But what should help 
more than all is a true relationship between officers 
and men and a real understanding. Slack officers, 
sarcastic, nonchalant, overbearing, snobbish officers 
are no use in any regiment, and only take away 
from its common life, as do also cowards, fops, 
and ladies' men. There is no one so quick as the 
common soldier in grasping whether in reality the 
officer in charge of him is a gentleman. And 
every ranker wants to have over him a man who is 
a gentleman. Ah, how the army has been pestered 
and made miserable by duds of one kind and an- 
other! In the army, allegiance should spring as 
much from hero-worship as from the rules of 
discipline. 

Hero-worship and comradeship, pride in one's 
nation and equal pride in one's regiment, ideals as 
triumphant as the colours themselves, living in- 



ii8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS iv 

terest and enthusiasm in all ranks — these are the 
true substitutes for fear and punishment and mili- 
tary law. 

It goes without saying that regard must be had 
to the clearing away of soldiers' injustices. More 
care should be given to the cooking and serving of 
his food, and a private soldier should not go short 
whilst all those who handle and distribute the food 
surfeit from too much. And medical officers should 
be allowed to treat sick men more as they would 
civilian clients. The washing of linen should be 
done properly. More care should be taken that 
a man's pay does actually reach him in its entirety 
and does not leak into the pockets of other ranks. 
Men sent on leave should infallibly receive their 
ration-money. No brutal advantage should be 
taken of the fact that a man once in the army is the 
army's slave. Care should rather be taken to give 
compensatory privileges when unusual demands 
are made upon soldiers. Officers should be on the 
alert to learn of anything that the soldier feels to 
be an injustice, and if the seemingly unjust thing 
is something necessary, though hard, he must put 
the soldier into a positive way of regarding it. 
This can often be done by kindness and politeness. 

What is the matter with the army as a whole 
is that there is not enough life in it. It is more 
of a national bondage than a national club. But 
it could be the most splendid of our institutions. 
In the army the nation should act and feel as one 
man. That is why we get into step and try to 
march as one body and to feel in our veins one 
loyalty. On the outbreak of a war the national in- 



IV ESPRIT DE CORPS 119 

stinct always says, "Close the ranks, forget all dif- 
ferences and act as one man!" There is a cry for 
that united front which the army should naturally 
possess. But the army's grievances make of it 
rather a collection of warring and grumbling indi- 
viduals than a warm glowing unity. And the griev- 
ances can never be got rid of by a more severe sys- 
tem of fear and punishment — they can be got rid of 
by the rule of a large national esprit de corps. 



TO THE FRONT 

We are living in the cage, and it might be jolly 
but that Polyphemus comes in every now and then 
and feels us and considers us and carries some away. 
Our companions are taken from us one by one 
and we hear of them afterwards as being dead, hear 
of them terribly mauled by the monster. It is 
borne in upon the mind that each and all of us 
must go in time, you and I as well. And the ques- 
tion arises in the mind: How shall we fare in the 
hands of the terrible man-eater? 

There is a polite euphemism for "Polyphemus 
wants you." It is: "The following are warned 
to be in readiness to proceed overseas." Ah, the 
very rumour of that notice raises a tremulous 
breeze in the whole barracks, a breeze that plays 
on the wind-harps of men's affections. It causes 
a consternation among us as if at some bygone pe- 
riod we had sold ourselves to the Devil for seven 
years' happiness, and now suddenly we saw the 
sinister figure appear claiming the execution of his 
bargain. 

Every one whispers to his neighbour, "Aj-e you 
for it?" "Yes," says the neighbour reluctantly, 
"my name is on the list," or "No," says he in a 

120 



V TO THE FRONT 121 

whisper, "my name is not on the list." "Oh, that 
means you re not for it." It is that one-eyed mon- 
ster who appeared in these parts about the begin- 
ning of August 1914. He satisfies his appetite on 
the bodies of young men. It was said that when 
he died of repletion a League of Nations would 
be formed to prevent his resurrection. Meanwhile 
the little victims of the hour sang in mock-pitiful 
strains: ^\ 

Oh my, I don't want to die, 
I — want to go home. 

Immediately the warning is given, blood-red tabs 
with the name of the regiment printed in white are 
sewn on the shoulders of our tunics. We are 
marked, as it were, with blood, and are like trees 
with the gash of the hatchet designing them to be 
felled, or like rams marked for sacrifice to the idol. 
"I see you've got them up," says one to the other 
with the curious hush of awe. "They say you can 
pick up no new girl in the Park when you've got 
them up," says another. "They all know what it 
means." The girls you know already "take on 
so" that it's better to borrow some one else's tunic 
till the last moment. Perhaps better still to avoid 
them and go somewhere up the Edgware Road and 
get drunk. 

Some of the marked men are new, some have 
been out before and have wound stripes on their 
arms. The men who have been wounded seem to 
take the matter more philosophically than the rest. 
Of the others there are always one or two who 
imagine they can escape the hand of Fate by re- 



122 ^ PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

sorting to various tricks to avoid it at the last mo- 
ment, by reporting sick, committing a crime, trying 
to square some one, or bolting home until the draft 
has gone. The call brings out the courage in most 
and the selfishness in some. For it is selfish to try 
to escape : if one man's name is crossed ofT the list 
for any reason another's must be put on. And 
though it is selfishness to want to escape, it is a 
much-qualified selfishness which can find excuse 
in the pain of parting, perhaps finally, with wife 
and family; in the pain which this taking away is 
going to cause to a loving woman. 

I recall to mind a rather hard type of Scotsman 
nearing middle age, patient and taciturn, Private 

M . He was warned for overseas. He was 

not very popular, and I remember a neighbour say- 
ing to him with a sarcastic grimace, "A sore blow, 

eh?" But M did not answer. He sent a 

telegram to his wife, who lived in some remote 
place near Banff or Nairn, and she came down to 
him, leaving her bairns in a neighbour's care. He 
said Good-bye to her — with what suffering! He 
got the Good-bye over, and went on grimly and 
quietly disposing of his spare kit, making his will, 
and doing all those final things that precede the 
going to the Front. 

Next day he was, however, sent for and told he 
was not for it. 

To his astonishment he was suddenly free again. 
We watched him in the barrack-room. Joy curi- 
ously suffused and transfigured his usually inex- 
pressive countenance, and a generous flow of life- 
blood rushed through his veins. He wired to 



V TO THE FRONT 123 

his wife again. The unopened parcel which she 
had brought him the day before he now opened, 
and distributed among us short-bread and home- 
baked scones. He was not one who gave away 
things as a rule. But now a light-heartedness 
seemed to possess him and smiles flickered across 
his face. He said, '*I am glad I'm not going to the 
Front — for my wife's sake. Fve always been quite 
ready to do my bit, and would only have wanted to 
get out of it because of her." How true that wasl 
He was a typical man of duty. Next morning, 
with pipers and escorting crowds, the draft went to 
the station to entrain. And he, with a sense of 
duty upon him, got everything ready to go in 
case after all he might be wanted. So he was. 
One of the men had gone out the night before 
and not returned to barracks. The sergeant- 
major looked round, saw M all ready, and 

in a matter-of-fact way bade him take the other's 
place. And he bit his lip and went. Later he 
was killed. 

Should the warning for the draft synchronise 
with pay-day there is likely to be a wild night fol- 
lowing. I vividly recall a night when one man 
in a raving state wanted to kill people with his 
bayonet — "It's the twenty-second German I've 
killed to-night," he kept on saying — and he had to 
be constantly disarmed and thrown with a whop on 
his bed; when the men lying each side of me slept 
"in marching order," i.e. with boots on. One was 
sick in between beds, another man hung with his 
head out of a window and, having been violently 



124 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

sick, fell asleep thus. Sergeant Five was one of 
those warned for that draft. He had got into 
trouble at Little Sparta Barracks, and for his sins 
was being sent on active service. He came in late 
that night in a conversational state, and sat by the 
embers of the fire talking to himself for hours 
about his wife and little ones: "I believe in God 
and all that; I'm not afraid to die," said he, "but 
the question I ask is, If I die, what are they going 
to do? What will the army do for them? Why, 
nothing, of course. That's just it. There are too 
many widows and orphans." 

But what a contrast the atmosphere of the fourth 
year of the war to that of the first! When the 
original summons came and the "Tipperary Boys" 
were called they were happy and excited beyond 
measure. German cannon devoured their hearts, 
and there followed Kitchener's wonderful army 
with their enthusiasm. They knew better than 
those who had gone first the hell to which they were 
going, but they were eager. Their ranks were 
thinned, and the Derby men and the first conscripts 
went out. And they were cheerful, even with their 
grievances and troubles. But later came a bitter 
residue of "indispensables," of men near middle 
age heavily committed with wife and children, of 
B men marked medically A, and what not. The 
first fought for a wage, the second for an ideal, 
and the rest because they had to. The curious 
thing in my experience was — to carry the record to 
the later times in France — that when it came to the 
point the last fought as well as the first, and the 



V TO THE FRONT 125 

lachrymose became eventually, under active-serv- 
ice conditions, as cheerful, as ardently patriotic and 
proud of the duty they were performing as any of 
the rest or of the dead had ever been. 

In the summer of 1917 the war might have been 
compromised in a peace, but in that summer we 
entered into a large alliance with America, and an 
enormous accession of military and financial aid 
was ensured. Meanwhile, however, in Russia the 
programme which the Allies had hoped to realise 
when sanctioning the March revolution failed; 
Germany succeeded in making peace there, and in 
buying or taking a large quantity of artillery, ma- 
chine-gunnery, and ammunitions largely supplied 
to Russia from the West. She could also call ofif a 
large number of soldiers hitherto employed in 
guarding against the Russian menace. A partially 
disarmed nation, even if capricious in her political 
tendencies, is not a military danger to a militant 
neighbour. The autumn and winter on the West- 
ern Front provided a lull broken only by the "Byng 
Boys' " victory and the German success of Cam- 
brai, so heroically checked by the Guards at 
Gouzeaucourt. The sense of a growing German 
power crept into the military mind. This was con- 
firmed by the extent of the Germano-Austrian vic- 
tory over the Italians, where it was claimed an- 
other thousand guns fell into the enemy's hands 
and a corresponding quantity of ammunition. 
After this no doubt was felt but that Germany 
would be found to be holding the initiative in the 
spring. She would again be able to batter herself 



126 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

to bits as she did at Verdun. Meanwhile her civil 
population would starve, and we would hold on 
till better days, when American reinforcements 
would enable us to take the upper hand. The lull 
continued throughout the winter; leave for the men 
continued. Our training continued in a pleasant, 
leisurely way. After our gruelling at Little 
Sparta we had three months more in London; we 
were just going off for even another month, a 
month's field-work in the country, when the crash 
came. 

On March 21, with the Kaiser himself in com- 
mand, the Germans made their most grand attempt 
to defeat us, to divide our armies from those of the 
French and to secure the mouth of the Somme. 
We know now that if the combustion of the Last 
Day had set in during the war it would have been 
described in the Press as a pitiful attempt at fright- 
fulness with meagre results. But consternation 
would have reigned nevertheless. So it was in this 
last week in March. The true significance of the 
German advance sounded as a trumpet-blast in all 
the training-camps of England, and every man in 
khaki knew England had need of him. Was it 
not shortly after this that the papers all printed 
articles on what the new drafts had done at the 
Front? Our hour had come. 

All other arrangements were cancelled. We all 
fell in, and there was a great clearance. The warn- 
ings to proceed overseas were soon posted, and it 
was found they affected a great number who did 
not expect to be sent. At such a moment of destiny, 
however, it was not becoming any man to take one 



V TO THE FRONT 127 

step to get his name erased from the list, and I 
think, somehow, all felt in that way, though not a 
few were advertised to go who would have been 
omitted had there been time to consider their uses. 
It was a great moment of national hush and of 
suppressed excitement. The tragic nature of the 
moment dispelled the more selfish and sickly ways 
of looking on the fight, and it was marvellous what 
a good, quiet, patriotic fervour developed in a few 
days then. Shirkers became volunteers, grousers 
and pacifists became patriots, selfish men became 
unselfish and pessimists optimists. What a change 
from the atmosphere of the departure of other 
drafts I had witnessed in time of deadlock, lull, 
stagnation! As I overheard an officer say at the 
time, "August 1914 is going to repeat itself." And 
so it was. 

The time we came up from Little Sparta to the 
historic London barracks was the night of Christ- 
mas Eve, but it was not serene. The day we left 
for the battle-front was Good Friday. The fact 
filled us all with a tremor which was perhaps a 
little superstitious. Destiny, in a sort of halo of 
days, seemed to light our brows and mark us out for 
sacrifice and service. 

"So we are going to set out on the day J. C. was 
crucified," said one. 

"Oh, shut up, for God's sake, do," said another 
nervously. 

"It's the luckiest day in the year," said another, 
with the consciousness of a lucky star. 

"I shall never come back," says another. 



128 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

"If you look at it like that, of course you never 
will," his companion replies. 

"Are ye glad to go?" some one asks of an Amer- 
ican. 

''You betr 

There were many rumours and contradictions 
and cancellings and re-postings. Notice had been 
very short. We were rushed hither and thither by 
sergeants and quartermaster-sergeants. We filed 
half-naked past the doctor, who passed us fit with 
great rapidity. We lined up at the tailor's den to 
have the red tabs sewn on the shoulders of our 
tunics. We received new metal helmets, water- 
proof capes, and draft-kit, field-dressings, identifi- 
cation discs, pay-books. Our wills were filed at 
the orderly room. We paraded for various in- 
spections, and all the while there were conflicting 
rumours as to postponement, acceleration, cancel- 
lation, which expressed themselves in an oft- 
reiterated "You're for it. No, you're not for it." 

But all unfolded itself in an apparent fitting- 
ness. We went on Good Friday, and it was at 
noon, just when in innumerable churches the Three 
Hours' Service was commencing, that we stood 
finally in the barrack-square in full field-service 
marching order, weighed down by what we car- 
ried. 

We were all very tense with emotion, and our 
hands shook comrades' hands in Good-bye with 
a regularity and continuity that only a practised 
demagogue leaving the platform could do well. 



V TO THE FRONT 129 

Tears stood in many eyes. We knew, however, 
that it was an ordeal for the nerves of the affec- 
tions, and steeled ourselves to think of other things, 
as we stood there, and be hard. But after the 
colonel of the regiment had inspected us there was 
a greater trial, when the marching order was given, 
and our stability upon the barrack-square gave way 
to motion toward France. Then the regimental 
band in all its brazenness blared out its melodies: 

If the sergeant drinks your rum, 
Never mind! 

and the rest. And the civilian population, with 
the women we knew, flung itself upon us, scatter- 
ing flowers and kisses, shouting and halloing, or 
gently sobbing and hurrying to keep step with us. 
Beads of perspiration rolled down brows and 
cheeks, our close hair on our heads rose with excite- 
ment. Men wreathed their service hats with 
primroses. Girls and wives were inside the ranks 
walking arm-in-arm with their soldier-boys. A 
mother held out her baby at arm's length for the 
soldier-father to kiss, and all the while the band 
ahead of us blasted away in quick-time — and then 
the band gave way more happily to the pipes, as 
all our pipers in gorgeous array took up the slogan 
and played us to the train. The populace was 
rolled back by the police, our ranks restored in all 
their brightness and sparkle, and every man's rifle 
seemed to be at the same angle across his left shoul- 
der. So in a fine strapping style, all together and 
with one step, we entered the stern confines of the 



130 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

terminus where the troop-train was waiting, 
marched past a large draft of silent Gordon High- 
landers with aprons over their kilts, and past a 
draft of Dorsets to the far end of a long plat- 
form. 

We were soon in the train, and then the civilians 
were allowed to us once more, and then the last 
tender farewells and embraces. Then the official 
farewell of the C.O. "Good-bye and spare none!" 
and then the cry, "All aboard!" and then, "We're 
ofif, boys!" 

And the train rolls slowly out. 

Fitz opposite me looked frantic with excite- 
ment. "I kill every German I see," says he. 

H , the American boy who wanted to charge 

with the Guards, put his head out of the window 
and yelled at every station we passed through in 
order to get a responding yell from astonished 
civilians, who nevertheless understood what it 
meant — reinforcements going into the great battle. 

"I'll never come back," says another, silent and 
morose. 

"Well, whatever happens," says another, "we've 
had a splendid send-off." And we all agreed with 
him. 

We found ourselves on Easter morning on the 
slope of a heaven-kissing hill, covered with in- 
numerable tents. The sun shone fair over France. 
We were at the Base Camp, and mingled with a 
vast concourse of new drafts of every regiment of 
Britain. We were there in strength, but there 
were also large batches, in some cases a thousand 



V TO THE FRONT 131 

strong, from the other national regiments that 
drilled with us at Little Sparta and had been 
brought up in the same ways. Not a few recog- 
nised me. I had had all the recruits at Little 
Sparta collected one night in the Grand Pavilion 
for a lantern lecture with pictures of things I had 
heard and seen in foreign parts. In London, ex- 
cept at the Bombing School, the five regiments had 
been separated, but now representatives of each of 
us, Bill Browns, Jocks, Micks, Taffies, and Goal- 
ies, were present — English, Scottish, Irish, Welsh 
— and we belonged to one division and would 
henceforth be more often together, one being the 
relief of the other in the field, or neighbour on the 
right or left, or behind in support. We were a 
Britain in ourselves. 

We heard fantastic rumours, unchecked by news- 
paper reports: the first that the Germans had en- 
tered Arras at eight o'clock that morning, then that 
one division as a whole had been lost and that we 
would have to take its place for the time being, 
then that the Germans had broken through at La 
Bassee. A Labour man told a group of us that 
the French had surrounded 500,000 Germans. 

"With what?" we asked in amusement. 

"With 30,000, eh?" 

One thing was certain : the great battle still 
raged, and we should be thrown into it to turn the 
scale. 

We comforted ourselves with a great deal of 
naivete in the presence of old soldiers and listened 
to almost any tale; we inspected the German pris- 
oner camps from a distance and criticised the large- 



132 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

ness of their rations; we ate our own bully-beef 
with relish and confessed it wasn't "half-bad"; we 
also ate the army biscuits without complaint, and, 
besides our bully, at every meal we ate a great num- 
ber of Germans. My blood was rather curdled 
by the atrocities we committed in advance and in 
imagination on fleeing or prostrate enemies when 
we got them in our power. 

"All that you can do to them they can also do to 
you," said I. "And when you talk of being merci- 
less when you have the German in your power, 
remember that just now it is chiefly British soldiers 
which he has in his power." But my companions 
did not go into battle with the Golden Rule em- 
broidered in their crest. They went out to be ter- 
rible to the enemy, to be drastic, to put the fear of 
death into him. 

However, with all our bravado and tall talk we 
had also the consciousness of going to sacrifice. 
We talked of killing, but thought more in our 
hearts of the possibility of being killed. The 
tragedy of leaving wife or sweetheart, home, par- 
ents, and to perish perhaps within a week was still 
the note to which we were attuned. 

Then our orders came quickly to the Base Camp, 
and even still more laden — for we now carried 
ammunition and a blanket as well as all the rest of 
the stuff which we had brought from England — 
we took the road back to Havre, there to entrain. 
It took us a long time to march a short distance, and 
every time we halted and sat down the weight of 
the stuff on our shoulders pulled our backs down, 
so that we lay on it and sprawled QUt with our legs. 



V TO THE FRONT 133 

What a relief that ten minutes in the hour gave 
us, what a pleasure it afiforded! It was strange to 
notice how much recuperated we were when the 
order came to resume our way. So we sludged 
along French roads singing any sort of song, glad 
to have anything that might make us forget for a 
moment the burden of Europe on our shoulders. 

At Havre we were put into a train. Not into 
the cattle-trucks we had been led to expect, but into 
the poky third-class carriages of a ramshackle 
passenger-train. It was a great crush, and how we 
squeezed in our equipment as well as ourselves it 
would be difficult to say. Plenty of army food was 
handed to us, and in a short while the whole lot 
of us were pottering to and fro with mess-tins mak- 
ing tea, and afternoon passed to evening in great 
gaiety. It was many hours before the train 
crawled out — the train which was going to the 
Front cautiously feeling its way at five miles an 
hour, and always waiting for army orders before 
it halted or proceeded. 

The movement in the train stirred something 
in ourselves. It was a very slow progress— noth- 
ing to alarm — but it meant: IV e — are — getting — 
nearer. It hushed the noisy thought ever such a 
little, and related each one of us for a moment to 
home and his loved ones, for the thread that was 
between us and home was being extended. It was 
tugging a little at heart-strings. 

Night set in and we settled ourselves as best we 
could, lying against or half on top of one another. 
The boy next to me lay on the floor under our feet. 
No one knew the point we were destined for, not 



134 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

even our officers sitting in the second-class. "It 
may be like this," said a sergeant: "the train will 
stop in a field and we'll all have to bundle out with- 
out our packs and go straight into action; or the 
train may be struck by a shell, and we may have 
to get out with our entrenching tools and entrench 
a position in a wood or on the ridge of a ploughed 
field. We might then get surrounded by the 
enemy and have to fight our way through." 

There were many suggestions, which increased, 
especially when the train passed into the city of 
Amiens and we began to hear the commotion of 
the battle. But from Amiens we did not approach 
nearer to the fray, but passed away northward into 
quieter country, where not a whisper of a shell was 
heard, slowly, slowly. 

We could not sleep, for we were in a neurotic 
and excited state. Mixed with us were many old 
campaigners, who told their stories of hair-breadth 
escapes and advanced theories of military be- 
haviour. "I'm a one-man soldier," a Welshman 
in front of me kept saying. "I'll do what I'm or- 
dered to do. I won't do more, but I won't do less." 
— "Ah, I'd always look after a chum, I would," 
says another soldier. 

Then the talk gives way to endless songs. And 
as we again near the zone of destruction we feel 
that tiredness, pain, death, though more or less 
distasteful, can nevertheless be viewed indiffer- 
ently. Only one thinks of the loved one at home 
and what it may mean to her. But we are in God's 
hand and His are our destinies. We are fighting 
in a good cause and ^'can do no other." If we die, 



V TO THE FRONT 135 

humanity must do for us all that we would do for 
her. 

Huddled up in a dark corner of the carriage 
a-thinking of many such occasions in life when I 
have parted for the unknown, listening to the sol- 
diers' tales, it recalled the mood of Clarence's 
dream when he was pacing on the hatches of the 
ship at night with the Duke of Gloucester, talking 
of the Wars of the Roses. The garment of destiny 
was woven of the substance of the dream. 

There were no lights in the carriage except that 
given by a guttering candle which kept spilling its 
grease; toppling over now and then, and having 
to be relit. The pale gleams showed the faces of 
the soldiers, and they looked more gentle than by 
day. 

*'How long will the war last?" asked one. 
"Five years, perhaps," some one replies. But it 
was not the years ahead but the present moment that 
was affecting the soldiers' souls. It was an epic 
moment for every man who had not gone to the 
Front before. 

The war had become the condition of our liv- 
ing. Every one had got to make the war his life. 
But it was not really life. Perhaps it was not so 
important as we thought. Still, it was a test of the 
heart. It was marvellous to feel ordinary working- 
men brought from the vulgarity and materialism 
of modern life to the reality that is only tenderness. 
If only distant London folk could have heard this 
slow midnight train creeping toward the war, its 
songs all turned tender and real, if they could see 
the bright eyes 1 And at about one in the morning 



136 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

the whole train seemed to be singing "Home, sweet 
home!" though no matter what song they sang, 
however vulgar, something in their tones robbed it 
of vulgarity. 

"I suppose there must be some of us who will 
never return," said one to me. 

"Yes, that's inevitable, I suppose." 

"But they say that if you're killed your spirit 
goes home first." 

"Yes, it's possible to return more quickly than 
one expects that way." 

"But do you believe it?" 

"It seems true," I answer. "It is a poetical 
thought, and poetry is always nearer the truth than 
prose. A shell blasts the life out of you, and you 
go straight to the presence of the one who is nearest 
to you." 

"Straight to the bosom of your beloved," I would 
have said to myself. 

The candle went irreparably to waste and gut- 
tered out at last, and we were left in complete dark- 
ness; for the windows of the carriage had been 
taken out and sheets of iron put in the frames in- 
stead of glass. With the darkness came also si- 
lence, long silence, and the train waiting hours, as 
it seemed, and then creeping cautiously on a mile, 
to wait again. We lay or lounged or sprawled in 
uncomfortable positions, and we thought, each man 
by himself. Some men remained pessimists in the 
darkness, some optimists, some morbid, others 
serene. And the serenity of the last emerged like 
a perfect night sky out of clouds in space — our 
faith! 



V TO THE FRONT 137 

Daybreak was murky, and the dull day showed 
us a more desolate country, scarred by the upturned 
clay of new breastworks, and in the grey sky we 
looked eagerly at rings of smoke of shrapnel, and 
of high explosive. The detonation of the war 
reached our ears. We watched many Red Cross 
trains go past — one way empty, the other way with 
their precious freight of wounded sons of our coun- 
try. 

Only in the late afternoon did we come to our 
particular railhead. By that time the clouds had 
cleared, and a lively breeze with fresh sunshine 
blew over the grass-covered ridge where we biv- 
ouacked. We were rejoiced to get out of the filthy, 
crowded train, and we made our evening meal with 
the greatest merriment and happiness. 

Our progress to the line was in stages. In the 
first stage we marched with many songs to the wet 

camp of B , where we bivouacked on the long 

wet grass and listened to the thunder-storm bom- 
bardment and the clangour of German attempts to 
break through. Though we had not come to the 
battle-centre, we had nevertheless reached the vi- 
cinity of the greatly extended German advance. 

We lay close to one another to keep warm, slept 
by fits and starts, and thought and dreamed of what 
Fate might have in store. We ate corned-beef and 
biscuits in the morning; we tried to keep clean de- 
spite the rivers of mud; we were paraded and 
sworn at and dismissed, and visited the village 
graveyard where so many bodies of brave soldiers 
lie — and all the time we thought about Fate. All 
about us swarmed French-Canadians, jabbering in 



138 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

their French patois. They had lost a chaplain, 
killed by a shell, and the body lay in state in the vil- 
lage church. It was a moving spectacle to see 
crowds of soldiers on their knees on the reversed 
chairs of this Roman Catholic chapel, the candles 
burning beside the coffin up at the altar, the sen- 
tries standing on each side of it, motionless, with 
bayonets fixed. 

Fitz, the Virginian, and Knock, a sailor boy who 
had been wounded at the Battle of Jutland and 
discharged from one service and conscripted into 
another, came in with me and knelt in the little 
chapel. After that we wandered a great deal 
about together. One of our quartermaster-ser- 
geants was killed ; we saw wounded men, walking 
wounded, come down the line to the dressing-sta- 
tion. Battle thunders rolled toward us and called 
us over the mud to the line. 

Then our caps were all taken away from us and 
put into old sacks. 

"You will get them back when you come out of 
action," we were told. "Now you'll wear your 
steel helmets." 

At the bottom of the sacks are many shabby, 
grubby caps. 

"Whose caps are these?" we ask. 

"They are the caps of the dead — of the men who 
have not come back to claim them." 

We go to the battalion painter. He paints the 
regimental crest on every helmet. We shall be 
distinguished even in the battle-line. 

The next stage is the march to the reserve lines 
in darkness and rain, a more or less silent trudge 



V TO THE FRONT 139 

through the mud. The men are not so heavily 
equipped now; packs have been left behind, but 
what remains on the soldiers' backs is heavy enough 
in all conscience. After a lull in the bombardment 
the guns take up the tale again, and evil gun- 
flashes rise out of the horizon; the war-dragon 
blinks his envious eyes on the living. His terrible 
voice resounds and echoes over the desolated coun- 
try. The draft is halted near a shattered village, 
halted again at a village which is flat. Shell-holes 
are on all sides and confusion indescribable. What 
is this strange field, with its tumbled stones and 
iron posts? It is the cemetery of what was once 
a large and thriving French settlement, a place 
which is still marked large on the map, but has 
ceased to exist. The iron posts are Catholic 
crosses: they are the only memorials which have 
withstood the effects of shrapnel; they point at all 
angles, and the Christs on them are more or less 
riven and broken again. There is a dull odour — 
it is that of the dead, even of the old dead, for the 
shells were but recently tearing up the graves again. 

Red lights go up, great red flares, lighting up 
one half of the night sky, showing the faint con- 
tours of grey clouds and the wannesses and dark- 
nesses of a rainy heaven, reflecting also on the faces 
of the men. All of us look a little strained, a little 
tired. 

Then the wan body of men go on, leaving the vil- 
lage behind, and plunge unevenly on the broken, 
rutty road, by which in all seasons the rations-carts 
plod every night to take the food to the men in the 
line. No civilisation is in front, but only end- 



140 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS v 

less barbed-wire, shell-holes, debris, dud shells, 
trenches. Shells come hurtling through the air, 
some give a long intense screech, others, seeming 
to have plenty of time, come chattering idly 
through the sky, but all crash and grumble in dis- 
jection with groan of fast-travelling fragments of 
cast-iron. The gas-shells sneak through the air 
and go ofif like wet fire-works. All ranks are 
wearing gas-masks at the alert, and we pass 
through the sweetish, sickly odour of spent gas 
from shells that fell in the morning; it is harmless. 
Nevertheless one shell does come on the track, and 
explodes beside the courageous old fellow from the 
Far West. He has no time to adjust his gas-mask 
on his head, and he gets the gas and falls out — goes 
back, the first casualty among my friends. 

There is a further halt, and as the tired rein- 
forcements rest, the moon comes out of the clouds. 
A party of men passes with rifles slung, puttees 
torn, trousers and tunic and equipment smothered 
in mud, faces pallid, haggard, tired. They are 
men who are coming out of the battle-line. They 
are going down to rest, and they have not a word 
to say. Silently, heavily, steadily they march 
down and past — the men of whom all men talk, 
England's guardians, the keepers of the line. 
They pass, and our fellows go on. In ten minutes 
more the new draft is in the mud and the chalk of 

the reserve lines at B and the reinforcements 

have taken their place. 



VI 

THE SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 

A CERTAIN literary bent being descried in me, I 
was asked by an enthusiastic officer, who by his 
enthusiasm and care for the men was the life and 
soul of his unit, to look through the battalion 
records, edit them where necessary, and endeavour 
to supplement them by stories of the fighting 
gleaned from the men. This gave me, as it were, 
a sort of roving commission among the ranks, and 
whilst remaining a private soldier I obtained the 
rare privilege of being able to approach any one, 
from lance-corporal to brigadier, without the soul- 
freezing formalities of being marched to this one 
and marched to that. It gave me a unique oppor- 
tunity, by which I profited, though many of those 
brilliant young writers who perished in the war 
would, no doubt, have profited more and have writ- 
ten a more stirring story at the end. I think of 
Chesterton and Saki and Brooke and Thomas and 
the rest. 

In London we had been with the reserve bat- 
talion. In France we joined a proud fighting bat- 
talion made up of men, each of whom had his own 
story of the fighting and of war-terror. There 
were still a goodly number of 1914 men, but as 
many or more of the other years of the war as well. 

The battalion was a thorough mixture of men of 

141 



142 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

all frays and men of all experiences, and it goes 
without saying it was fier comme un ecossais, it was 
justly proud of what it had done and justly awed 
because of the number of its dead. 

The battalion belonged originally to the *'im- 
mortal" Seventh Division, and was brought from 
garrison duty in Egypt upon the outbreak of war. 
After a short course of special training in the New 
Forest, it was taken across the Channel and thrown 
into the scale in Flanders. The transport on which 
it sailed for Bruges Bay was not in any way 
memorable itself, but it was a sort of Argo by vir- 
tue of the flower of manhood which it had on 
board. The officers were brave young men of 
noble families, who knew in behaviour and act the 
meaning of noblesse oblige, the men whom they 
designed to lead were the seasoned veterans of the 
old "contemptible little army." They were rushed 
forward to save Antwerp, or to save the retreating 
Belgian Army, and then rushed back to Ypres to 
save themselves and the line, but within three weeks 
of their landing on the Continent, nearly all the 
fighting officers and three-quarters of the rank and 
file were killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. At 
the First Battle of Ypres the commanding officer 
himself surrendered to the enemy, and the second 
in command, the hero of all the soldiers under him, 
was shot dead. Here the war in all its dumb- 
founding novelty and its nightmare of chances of 
death and suffering disclosed itself. The "pro- 
fessional" soldiers little knew when, at an imma- 
ture age, they signed on for long terms of years of 
service, that the future held in it such an ordeal, 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 143 

such a confrontment of horror, such a massacre. 
Else the callow boy who signed away his freedom 
for the glamour of a uniform might have paused. 
This was something vastly different from trouble 
in Matabeleland or mowing down the Fuzzy- 
Wuzzy in his home in the Soudan. It was no 
longer the hopeless valour of the Dervish with his 
spear versus the hopeless efficiency of the machine- 
gun, but with a sort of poetic justice it was ma- 
chines versus machines. It might even fairly be 
argued that in 1914 the machines opposing us were 
better than those we held ourselves, and that rela- 
tively we were now in the position of the less scien- 
tific and educated tribes of the world, and were 
up against a race who had better machinery for 
killing men than we had. A devastating thought! 
And, despite the discipline of our Spartan originals 
in the battalion, there was a good deal of excusable 
stupefaction which might even be called by a more 
unkind name by the ruthless military mind. The 
First Battle of Ypres was a frantic ordeal. The 
glory of the battalion lies in the terror of these 
days and nights in which it was destroyed and in 
the ever-memorable losses in officers and men, a 
new type of glory in the British Army, one which 
was born of suffering and losses rather than one 
born of the joy in causing losses to the enemy. 

After the battle the numbers were made up by 
fresh drafts of men from England, more old sol- 
diers, for the volunteers were not trained yet. 
These in turn suffered untold privations in the first 
rainy winter of the war, in the worst trenches the 
army ever saw. There were no capacious dug- 



144 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

outs and comfortable sand-bagging, but our "sea- 
soned" veterans, with the sun of Egypt deep in 
their flesh, came from the warmth and drought of 
Cairo to the frost and penetrating damp of an im- 
provised system of trenches. They were not in- 
frequently flooded out, they had no duck-boards, 
none of the military civilisation which was devel- 
oped in later years. I have no doubt many a vital 
string of men's constitutions was snapped that win- 
ter, though that sad event meant much more to the 
man personally than it did to his place in the army. 
Men whose health was lost had to fight on in pa- 
tience equally with those who kept well. The 
army could not afford to go sick. 

In December 1914 the battalion took part in an 
abortive night-operation, in which it suffered 
heavily, sowing No Man's Land with its dead. 
Something great might have come of it had all 
gone well on every hand, but the ''best laid schemes 
of mice and men gang aft agley." The attack was 
well conceived from the attackers' point of view, 
but as became usual in later stages of the war, our 
executive imagination stopped short of the enemy's 
designs. The German lines were reached, the 
Germans met us adequately, parties were lost in 
the dark, parties perished, parties were left be- 
hind, and in the end the survivors on both sides 
were back in their wet holes, conscious of the green 
bundles, which once were men, lying unrecovered 
in the dangerous waste between the lines. 

The first Christmas came, and with it the un- 
official armistice, when British and Germans met 
and interchanged courtesies where but lately they 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 145 

had fought, and our Tommies exchanged souvenirs 
with Fritz, and we buried our dead and ate Christ- 
mas pudding and wondered of home. At that time 
there was a rumour as if the armies of both sides 
might ultimately refuse to fight, and the politi- 
cians be left to settle the war as best they might 
without any more shedding of innocent blood. 
This possibility never found much favour, how- 
ever, in authoritative circles, and soon orders were 
sent out to discourage fraternisation and to encour- 
age a greater spirit of hate. A year later a Stafif 
officer took up his unwonted abode in the trenches 
on Christmas Eve to see to it that the instructions 
against making friends with the enemy were car- 
ried out. 

Nevertheless, there was probably little chance 
of such an ideal consummation of the war as a 
peace by mutual consent of rank and file, though 
it was thought the war might be over by Easter 
1915, or at the latest by Michaelmas; there was, 
as we all know now, a long and bitter stupid reckon- 
ing to make on both sides before the game was to be 
thrown up. 

The battalion went into all the bloody adven- 
tures of 191 5 — Neuve Chapelle and Festubert and 
Loos and Hohenzollern Redoubt — and was rein- 
forced repeatedly from the large and gallant body 
of Kitchener's men. Instead of being a time of 
ending and of winning, it was a time of making 
and consolidating. The British Army was being 
hammered into shape. The new discipline, the 
only discipline fitting for the new stress of war, 
was being introduced. That Prussianism which 



146 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

had obtained currency in the continental govern- 
ments — that "the army is founded on the death- 
penalty; remove the death-penalty and the fabric 
of the army falls to pieces" — was gaining practical 
hold of the mind of the new army builders. The 
year 191 5 saw probably the greatest number of 
cases of capital punishment in the war. For of- 
fences which seem slight enough to the civilian in- 
telligence, and indeed to the intelligence of the 
civilians in khaki, many were shot, and appalled 
regiments heard so often the terrifying volley at 
dawn and knew that another weaker brother had 
paid the price of efficiency. A man shot does not 
help to fight the foe ; could he not have been sent 
to the base to do clerical work or into a labour bat- 
talion to mend the roads? Would he not at least 
have helped a little in these capacities, though by 
temperament he be no use as a fighting man? 
The army answer would be: He had to be shot 
as an example. If we let him go, others would 
play the coward and so save their skins. But if 
we shoot him, every man knows what is likely to be 
his fate if he fails at his post. He knows also that 
the army has absolute power over him, and that it 
is not the least use rebelling or mutinying or en- 
deavouring in any way to oppose his puny strength 
to its complete power. 

It is greatly to the credit of our regiment that 
in the whole of the war it only lost one man who 
was sentenced to death by court-martial and shot. 
Nevertheless, I suppose the fate of that one man 
showed to what an extent it has been sought to 
found the discipline of the army upon fear. Pri- 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 147 

vate X was shot for cowardice. It was after the 
battle of Neuve Chapelle, and the sentence was 
procured largely upon the evidence of a certain 
dour sergeant-major, who himself was killed not 
long afterwards by a German shell. The spirit of 
the army finds its most practical expression in the 
non-commissioned man. He has no imagination, 
or if he had it when joining the army, he gener- 
ally puts it away and becomes a subordinate limb 
of the body-politic of the army. The brain of 
the army works through him. The men hated 
Sergeant-Major Y for his doing to death of the 
private in his company. The company was morti- 
fied beyond words at the imputation of cowardice 
to any one in its ranks, and felt that they in a way 
were disgraced by the sentence. They therefore 
swore a sort of oath of comradeship to redeem their 
name at the next battle. They would fight on, no 
matter at what cost, and never surrender them- 
selves, and take no prisoners. Every man was to 
win a virtual V.C. And they did make an ex- 
traordinary fighting display some weeks after- 
wards at Festubert — one-half of the company died 
fighting, earning for itself the title of the "Im- 
mortal Eighty." The papers at home resounded 
with their praise, and several poets of the bat- 
talion have written verses concerning the occasion. 
The battalion has had many poets, good, bad, and 
indifferent. Extraordinary how fighting and 
rhyming go together. Most of the poets were 
uneducated, and, like Byron, did not care for 
grammar at a push, but they were in nowise de- 
terred. 



148 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

Bayonets lunge — and gory red return on guard again, 

As many a coward, tyrant Hun falls numbered with the slain. 

For all that stern and rugged field was drenched with blood 

that day 
By men who'd rather bleed and die than go the coward's way, 

writes one. 

They close again, a smile is on each brow 

Ye Gods! is not this valour sans compeer? 

Death, Glory, Life clasp hands together, now 

'Tis over, and they are gone, and foemen murmur. How? 

writes another. 

I was much interested in the stories of the shoot- 
ing of Private X and the subsequent heroism of 
the immortal eighty. Every man who belonged 
to the time had something to tell of his impressions 
— all sentimentalised the poor private soldier and 
made a hero of him, and equally sentimentalised 
the sergeant-major, making of him the villain of 
the melodrama. Here is my impression taken 
from the men. 

There is a tavern in Laventi where a bygone 
Derby winner is supposed to have been born, and 
an old race-horse called Calais was still to be seen 
when our men were there in 191 5. It had had its 
day and won its corn. Over the bar where the 
beer and vin rouge are served was a life-size pat- 
tern of a horse worked in the wall in coloured 
bricks. In this tavern there would break out char- 
acteristic rags upon occasion, when the officers 
quartered upstairs would begin aiming butter at 
one another, pouring champagne down one an- 
other's necks, breaking the furniture, and so rous- 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 149 

ing the Belgian women who slept in the cellars 
below. It was at this tavern that the immortal 
eighty used to meet, and here they vowed never to 
take any prisoners or to surrender, no matter to 
what extremity they might be reduced in battle. 
The misanthropic sergeant-major had his meals at 
this tavern, and after the recent court-martial and 
subsequent execution of Private X at dawn, he had 
become a shunned man. He was felt to be doomed, 
and it was as if the brand of Cain had come out 
on his brow, and he too seemed to know in some 
sort of way that a German shell was waiting for 
him. He himself belonged to the same company 
as the Immortals, but he was one of the sort who 
never miss an opportunity of doing you harm, of 
working against you and getting you punished. 
He sat apart, and Private A, sitting among the Im- 
mortals, rather a character in his way, would 
glance at him in the midst of the potations and 
whisper impressively to his comrades the lines of 
Burns: 

Man's inhumanity to man 

Makes countless thousands mourn. 

So it was at Festubert. Quite early in the fray 
Sergeant-Major Y got a shell to himself, and he 
lay on the battle-field in mortal agony, and no one 
would give him a drink of water, though he kept 
asking for it. Some even spat on him as they 
marched past. The immortal eighty, to whose com- 
pany, as I have said, both X and Y belonged, went 
by — went, indeed, too far and were surrounded, 
fought to the very last man, and their bodies and 



I50 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

those of their foes, pinned by their bayonets, lay 
in heaps together in No Man's Land. The army 
retired, and no one was able to bring the bodies in 
and bury them. But night-parties went out months 
later to search among the dead for valuable papers 
and maps which had been in possession of one or 
other of the sergeants, and they found sodden 
masses of decay and skeletons full of flies, which, 
when the corpses were disturbed, came flustering 
out in clouds, even in the darkness of night. 

"O would that I had seen them lying there!" 

wrote Henderson Bland in the Graphic. 

A dauntless few amid the German dead 
With twisted bayonets and broken rifles spread, 
Let some one mark the place whereat they fell, 
And hedge it round, for in the after-time 
Their fame will draw the many who would dwell 
Upon those deeds that made an hour sublime. 
I hear them shouting there, "Surrender! Never! 
Take the last cartridge here — Scotland for ever!" 

Y's body was, I believe, found, and buried with 
due ceremony, and a "decent" cross, with name 
and rank printed thereon, was raised above it. It 
is in one of those military cemeteries behind the 
lines where each dead man abides in his rectangle 
and even ranks are maintained. But the eighty 
are become "lonely soldiers," with blank crosses, 
because nobody knows them, or can tell one from 
another, friend from foe. They are one in death, 
as they were in life. Their heroism was a matter 
of esprit de corps, and Y, had he lived, would prob- 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 151 

ably have blamed them for going too far, for he 
was a believer in a discipline to which esprit de 
corps should always be subservient. A fine esprit 
de corps and a discipline founded on fear will, how- 
ever, often clash. It was so in the attitude of the 
men toward the shooting of Private X. 

The court-martial and this execution, which 
seemed to bring the curse on Sergeant-Major Y, 
and made him finally hated, was occasioned by a 
circumstance in the battle of Neuve Chapelle. It 
should be explained that in those days shell-shock 
was not a recognised type of casualty. The pre- 
sumption is that X was suffering from it; a shell 
had burst near him and left his brain in a dazed 
condition. For he was one of the bravest boys in 
his company, and at the same time one of the most 
eager. He was lost sight of in the battle, did not 
turn up when the men were rearranged in their 
ranks and marched away, but straggled in later, 
and was unable to give an account of himself. 
Sergeant-Major Y accused him of cowardice in the 
face of the enemy and intention to desert, and had 
him placed under arrest at once. Y, through army 
training, had become the sort of man who pre- 
sented every fault in the worst possible light, and 
he was capable of pursuing a case with persistent 
malevolence. During the time of his authority 
he got many men greater punishment than would 
normally have been thought due, or than could 
have been expected, blackening and accusing men 
when brought before their officers. The case 
against X was the crown of this course of action. 



152 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

It had often procured extra pain, fatigue, and sick- 
ness for men in his company, but in this case it ob- 
tained for him a young man's death. 

In the light in which Sergeant-Major Y con- 
strued X's conduct, and the absence of explanation 
on the part of X, the colonel saw the matter in a 
very serious light, and decided it was not one he 
could himself settle suitably, and the case was set 
down for district court-martial. Afterwards, 
when the matter had been discussed considerably 
in the battalion, opinion changed somewhat in X's 
favour, and Y, on whose evidence the boy's life 
depended, was given the hint to soften things down 
at the trial. Y, however, was not a relenting type, 
and insisted on his personal opinion that X had dis- 
played cowardice, and that the discipline of his 
company would go to bits if such behaviour were 
allowed to pass without exemplary punishment. 
The judges were men of another regiment; they 
took the sergeant-major's word as against Private 
X's obscurely-written, verbose defence. X was 
found guilty, and sentenced to be shot. He was 
the only man before or since who in this crack 
regiment in this war has suflfered the extreme 
penalty. 

What the regiment has done in the war cannot 
easily be set down in words. It has gone into the 
midst of terrible slaughter many times. In re- 
cruits it has consumed six times its original number. 
When the roads have been full of a disorganised 
rabble they, with a few kindred regiments, have 
alone been found facing the other way, and going 
to avenge dishonour and defeat. The regiment 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 153 

was proud of itself. How it stomached the hu- 
miliation of having one of its members shot may 
be imagined. 

From the moment the sentence was known a 
new note prevailed in the battalion. The men 
were not in the trenches, but in the shine and 
sparkle of a resting-time behind the lines. Stern- 
ness increased. N.C.O.'s grew angrier and 
harsher. The artificial bawls of the parade- 
ground were more intolerable than ever. Drill, 
which should be a pleasant thing, was terrible and 
straight and merciless, as if each man were being 
tried for his life. Nothing flattering was once 
said to a platoon or company; but instead, frowning 
displeasure reigned. 

X was seen by the chaplain, who found him quite 
cast down because of the disgrace, but angry be- 
cause it would come to his father and mother also 
that he had been shot for cowardice. The com- 
passionate minister thought to fortify him to meet 
death, but that matter did not seem to trouble the 
prisoner in the least. They knelt down and prayed 
a little together in the quiet of the informal prison. 
"Don't be too miserable about it," said the padre. 
"They were hard on you. Though you've been 
condemned, it doesn't necessarily mean that you 
deserve to die. You've been made an example of 
for the good of the army as a whole. We've got 
to beat the Huns ; it's a terrible ordeal, we all know, 
but every one must be made to feel that it's impos- 
sible to escape death by running away." 

There was a pause; the minister asked if he had 
any doubts in his mind about salvation. 



154 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

"You don't expect me to forgive my enemies?" 
asked the boy. 

"Not if they are Prussians," said the chaplain 
staunchly. 

"Well, I don't forgive Sergeant-Major Y," said 
he. "And what's more, he v^on't be long following 
me. My case isn't settled yet." 

"Ah, I'm afraid there's no appeal, my poor lad," 
said the comforting parson, "unless you mean on 
the other side, where I've no doubt if there's any- 
thing wrong it'll all be tried over again." 

Sergeant-Major Y, however, was harsher than 
ever. But there was a marked coldness toward 
him, even among those of his own rank. The time 
of execution was fixed for Friday at dawn, the 
whole battalion to be on parade to witness the same. 

Reveille was an hour earlier than usual, and the 
men dressed in the dark. They were to be in full 
fighting order, with their packs on their backs. 
Private X and his guards dressed also, and he alone 
was in "walking-out attire." He had spent a good 
night, and was calm, even cheerful. During the 
preliminaries of ranging the battalion around three 
sides of a square and fixing places for CO. and ad- 
jutant and other officers, X was comparatively free, 
and he talked with several of his old companions, 
and said "Good-bye," very happily and calmly. 

Volunteers had, I believe, been asked for, out of 
the battalion, to shoot him, or the idea of volunteers 
had been mooted. For of course if X had really 
disgraced the regiment it would have been easy to 
find volunteers. But volunteers could not be ob- 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 155 

tained in this case, and so the battalion snipers were 
ordered up to make a firing-party. 

"Don't miss! Fire right through my heart," 
said X to them. Then he asked for a cigarette, 
lit it, and strolled easily and politely across the 
green to the tree against which he would be shot. 
He did not wish to have his eyes bandaged, but in 
that he was overruled. The battalion, with arms 
at the slope, stood to attention, the snipers stood and 
loaded. The victim, with the white bandage over 
his eyes and feet and hands tied, stood against the 
tree. Pale dawn light of mist crept over the scene 
of punishment, encroaching on horizons and mak- 
ing the scene of punishment the world itself for a 
moment. 

The military police took charge of the whole 
ceremony, and then in the tensity a perfectly- 
dressed sad officer read the sentence, and then up 
went the rifles to firing position. "Good heavens, 
they are going to shoot him!" The idea dawns on 
those of dull imagination. There is scarcely a dry 
eye in the battalion. Captain C, who is X's com- 
pany commander, looks to be in a terrible state of 
nerves. Popular Jimmy, the R.S.M., is melan- 
choly beyond words. Vigilant police in the back- 
ground are keeping strangers away from the scene. 
Then zupp, zypp, pp, crash, the ten shots are fired 
all at once, and X falls dead. 

Captain C on his horse wheels about and sud- 
denly takes charge of the whole battalion. "Or- 
der arms, unfix bayonets, form fours left, quick 
march!" And the men with their officers march 



156 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

out on a long route-march, leaving the limp fallen 
body behind at the foot of the tree. 

And not a man has mutinied. Such is the force 
of the discipline. The mutiny has only been in 
the heart. 

Y, however, remains a marked man. And he 
sits alone in the tavern of the horse. A special 
shell is waiting for him, stacked for the time being 
in a German ammunition dump, but coming into 
action in the early part of the battle of Festubert. 
His company, uncowed by discipline, gain — 
"through death immortal fame." 

It is a matter of esprit de corps. 

After Festubert a bombing company was 
formed, and this contained all the worst characters 
in the battalion, the intractable spirits. It was in 
charge of a dare-devil young officer, and he loved 
these bad characters and proved them one and all 
to be heroes. If any sergeant-major could not 
manage any one in his company, he had to send 
him along to the "Suicide Club," where he was at 
once welcomed. And the bombing company prac- 
tised hard with fearful and wonderful bombs, 
which caused as much terror to friends as to 
foes. 

The regiment then marched to Loos, where every 
one blundered but the soldier did as he was told. 
On the road the battalion spent a whole day march- 
ing in a circle, and one soldier was heard to ex- 
claim in undying phraseology: "I don't mind 
damn well fighting and I don't mind damn well 
marching, but this being damned about all the damn 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 157 

time's what damns me." And we arrived late, 
late, at Loos, when for twenty-four hours the Ger- 
mans could have broken the line if they'd only 
known there was nothing in front of them. The 
kiltie lads lay asphyxiated in gas, the supporting 
division was in indescribable rout and confusion, 
and then at last a string of our splendid Spartan 
battalions was let loose at the foe, and swept into 
action with a verve and a style that are never to be 
forgotten. 

After Loos the bombers had their great show, 
when between dawn and breakfast-time something 
like 18,000 bombs were flung upon the Germans 
in the Hohenzollern Redoubt, and the bad boys 
who formed the bombing company were all killed 
or wounded, and the teaching of bombing was pro- 
ceeding with novices in the trenches whilst the 
actual fight was going on. Never did any one see 
so many dead at any time in the whole war as in 
the foreground of this terrible redoubt. The 
shadows of the crowds of the dead invaded men's 
consciousness, and left in not a few a lasting sadness 
and melancholy which even victory could not cure. 

Death, moreover, had eaten deep into the bat- 
talion by now, and had taken from each man 
friends, acquaintances, men he admired, men he dis- 
liked. The colours of the regiment were kept un- 
frayed, unsoiled in London, but the human colours, 
the body and soul of the regiment, were torn and 
ragged, crimson, bloodstained, scorched with the 
fire of battle, bleached by the death-dealing odours. 

In the winter of 191 5 the battalion was sent to 
Calais and to its frosty shores and brutal pleasures 



158 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

for a rest — one of the hardest times of all its suffer- 
ings, when the men lived in open tents on a snow- 
swept, icy shore. And then the battalion went to 
guard the ruins and the battle-lines of Ypres. Be- 
cause it had defended Ypres in October 1914 upon 
first coming out and had had such a tragic and 
heroic history there, it saw the ruins with some 
emotion. In course of time the battalion even be- 
gan to associate itself specially with the little town, 
as if it alone were the protector of it. In how many 
other regiments has not a similar sentiment pre- 
vailed! Ypres in its ruins came to be regarded as 
a sort of spiritual treasure of the British Army. 
"Oh, I think I'd shoot myself if Ypres were taken," 
said a blaspheming old soldier to me, the sort of 
man you'd say would do nothing for an ideal. 
"Ypres was the most beautiful little town you 
could ever wish to see at the end of a day's march," 
said another. Again our poets consecrated many 
thoughts and rhymes to Ypres. 

From out the ruins I think I hear 
The sleeping dead give one great cheer, 

wrote our wonderful orderly of the CO. I think 
he wrote a poem on every place and every fight 
in the war. 

In the grim salient of Ypres we shed much 
blood; wherever the battalion went it bled plenti- 
fully, and must have wasted away but for the new 
blood continually coming in. To many the time 
at Ypres was the most terrible in the war, but per- 
haps to all the most poetical. It was, neverthe- 
less, despite the poetry, a marvellous relief when, 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 159 

late in the summer of 191 6, the order came to 
march south, and our fighting-men left the grey 
zone of ruin and destruction and plunged into the 
peace and verdure of the France which was out of 
range of the shells. The unsullied greenery was 
sanctuary to the eyes. Virtues were discovered in 
the quiet French provincial folk that the men were 
confident did not exist in any Belgians. It was a 
long route-march, and at the end of it the concen- 
trated horrors of the prolonged battle of the 
Somme. But the men did not look far ahead ; they 
were content to live in the present when the pres- 
ent was good. The battalion was even then a 
strange mixture of men who had just come into 
the war, and men who had been more or less in all 
of it up till then. It marched in the sunshine and 
fresh air and followed the gay pipers, and no one 
more was killed for a whole month. For a while 
its life and its strength were stable, though each 
man knew, as a matter that had become usual, that 
here and there, in this rank and in that, men were 
invisibly marked for destruction later on, many 
were certain to disappear even within the very next 
month when they fronted the guns once more. 
What a life! Happy they who have no imagina- 
tion and no ever-articulating growth of thought! 
They say the bad characters had generally a bad 
time in the war. But I imagine those who could 
think most suffered most, and the bad boys were 
generally pretty thoughtless. We had about that 
time one of the worst and bravest, the despair of 
officers and N.C.O.'s, who nevertheless got his 
worst offences and punishments forgiven him for 



i6o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

his deeds of daring in time of action. During this 
progress from Ypres to the Somme he refused to 
march, and burnt his army boots. As a punish- 
ment the adjutant had him made a pair of sandals. 
He had to wear his gas-mask, and he was tied to a 
limber and dragged along. So he went most of 
the way to the Somme with these absurd goggles 
on his face and his bare feet in sandals. It did 
not make the least impression on his character, I 
am told. He was so wild the army had to get rid 
of him at last. It could not tame him, and, tied to 
the tail-end of a limber, he was a symbol of the 
failure of old-fashioned discipline. 

In the current sinister slang of the army, if the 
mortality was high at Ypres, the Somme, never- 
theless, was not a health-resort. The autumn bat- 
tles which gave us Grandecourt, Les Boeufs, and 
the rest were possibly the easier part of the ordeal. 
It was the winter in the bad Somme line of which 
the most terrible tales are told. How men stood 
by one another and endured the mud, the frost, the 
incessant bombardment makes us wonder at human 
endurance, will always make men wonder. Curi- 
ous that in London, in Britain as a whole, the suf- 
fering should have been taken so much for granted, 
the heroic and splendid side always spoken of, the 
other denied, the cheerfulness of the men always 
affirmed as a sort of proof that conditions after all 
were not intolerable. Those soldiers, however, 
who went through the Somme campaign saw even 
in that enough, and would never desire of them- 
selves to march another step or fire another shot. 
It was one vast chamber of gloom and horror. 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION i6i 

As a holiday in '17 when the Germans had ex- 
ecuted their retreat to the Hindenburg Line the men 
were taken from the Somme trenches and given the 
task of building the Peronne railway. It was nav- 
vies' work, but they took to it as if it were a task 
of the heart's dearest choice, so greatly was it bet- 
ter than the mud and the frost and the shells of the 
line. After the railway they were sent to build 
an aerodrome, and only when that was accom- 
plished were they given a genuine rest, something 
of a real change and a relief. 

On April 12, with pipers playing, the battalion 
marched from Clery to Peronne and from Peronne 
some five miles farther east, to what had once been 
the pleasant town of Cartigny, now the wilderness 
the Germans had left it when retreating to the 
Hindenburg Line. All that was left of what had 
once been a fair town was a mass of ruins, and 
when the battalion arrived in the snow and pitched 
its tents on the mud, the prospect was not cheer- 
ful. But it proved to be the prelude to a delight- 
ful holiday and a most unexpected development 
from the drudgery of the war. 

The King's uniform covers a multitude of vir- 
tues and gifts, and there lurked in our battalion 
an unsuspected talent, which was presently to mani- 
fest itself in a surprising way, transforming the 
misery of Cartigny as by a fairy wand into the love- 
liness in which we left it. The hidden hand, I be- 
lieve, was Armstrong's, for the joy of his life had 
been gardening, especially artificial gardening. 
In that mysterious state of life to which it had 
pleased God to call Armstrong, he was an arti- 



i62 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS VI 

ficial gardener on the estates of Lord B in Scot- 
land, and his handiwork had upon occasion fig- 
ured in photographic efifect on the glazed surfaces 
of Country Life. He was the genius of Cartigny, 
and in his quiet, sweet way wrought for beauty — 
one of the strongest men in the battalion, an ex- 
pert wrestler, but also one of the most gentle, one 
of the few men in our careless, violent crowd who 
did not use bad language. Of course he found 
kindred spirits, and the other gardeners of the bat- 
talion shone out through their camouflage of khaki. 
"Gardeners camouflaged as soldiers," I hear the 
hard voice of the R.S.M. a-saying. But before 
long every man had become a gardener, and was 
co-operating to work the miracle amid the ruins. 
And since they worked in mid-April, a month be- 
yond the solstice, they had one greater than all co- 
operating with them, the great god of gardens 
breathing radiant life and energy over their bended 
backs. 

The railway to Peronne is not yet absolutely per- 
fect, and what is called "railway-fatigue" will en- 
dure all the while the battalion is at Cartigny. 
The men will be employed in shifts, and there will 
be no drill or musketry or practice bombing — only 
a roll-call in the morning and the leisure time in 
the encampment. A bright idea comes to birth 
in the battalion — to make gardens. 

All the men were on wood-fatigue to make 
bonfires, so as to get dry after the soaking march, 
and also, if possible, to dry up the mud on which 
our seventy-seven tents were pegged. There is 
not a Frenchman on the scene, not a sentry or a 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 163 

prohibited area, but without let or hindrance 
the ruins are at the disposal of the soldiers. It 
is not difficult to find wood. There is wood for 
the preliminary and trivial matter of fires to get 
dry, but there is also wood to floor every tent, 
wood that can be used for all manner of building 
purposes, and brick also, and stone and iron. 
^'The men will have to stir and make this place 
generally habitable," an officer is overheard to 
say to the sergeant-major; ''if they can build a 
railway they can also build houses. What we re- 
quire is an orderly room, headquarters, officers' 
messes, a fitting habitation for you, my dear ser- 
geant-major. . . ." 

The news soon went along the lines of the tents, 
where the men, dry and warm, lay on the flooring 
which they had just put down, and a hum of joyful 
anticipation grew on it. They would not need to 
be driven toward that kind of work. It was just 
what every one instinctively craved — to make, to 
build, to create again, the reaction from the spirit 
of destruction. 

Cartigny is on the river Cologne, which flows 
into the Somme at Peronne. The road runs paral- 
lel with the river, and the Germans have cut the 
river-bank extensively in order to produce a perma- 
nent flood. In this, however, they have proved 
unsuccessful, for the road still holds, and it is of 
the ruins at the entrv to Cartigny that the Orderly 
Room and Right Half Mess are destined to be 
made. 

In three days the Orderly Room, company and 
battalion messes, sergeants' mess, and cook-houses 



i64 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

are all complete, and a really fine piece of work 
has been begun on a house of brick, with every 
convenience, for the CO. and the adjutant. The 
Orderly Room, roofed with corrugated iron 
brought in a lorry from Clery, stands on one side 
of the Peronne road. On the other is rising 
ground, which slopes sharply upward to where 
Headquarters Mess is being built. An army of 
bright boys from G Company is about to begin cut- 
ting steps in the bank, so that it may be easier for 
officers going up and down between Headquarters 
and the Orderly Room to do so, when a happy 
thought comes to some one: Why not bring a 
stairway from one of the ruined houses and fit it 
in? A large staircase is soon found, and removed 
intact from the house to which it belonged — the 
absence of two walls and roof had left the staircase 
nakedly exposed to view, and it was removed with 
very little difficulty. Fitting it into the clifY is 
more difficult. The earth has not only to be cut, 
but in places where it falls away too abruptly 
earth has to be supplied. At length the work is 
accomplished, and there is a polite wooden way 
from the Orderly Room up to the small tableland 
where Headquarters is rising out of the wreck of 
a farm-house. 

There is a space of a few yards between the top 
of the staircase and H.Q., and, being continually 
trodden over, the grass begins to look shabby and 
wear through to the brown earth. This begets the 
second idea of Cartigny. The sun is now shining 
and the weather set fair. Why not a pathway of 
carefully arranged white bricks? That is done, 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 165 

and then Armstrong devises a few rockeries along 
the borders, "so that the place might not seem so 
bare." And he begins to transplant from the gar- 
dens of the abandoned and ruined villas. He finds 
narcissus, pheasant-eyed narcissus, and tiger lilies. 
He never calls the latter tiger lilies, but always 
tigrum lilium — by that you may know he is a gar- 
dener — and when he wants to tell you how and 
what he planted and arranged, he keeps making 
tiny circles in faint pencil on the paper before you. 
He finds auriculas and pansies and violas, trans- 
plants even a rose. 

The officers, in all their perfection of glimmer- 
ing brown boots, trip along the white bricks and 
up and down the wooden way, and as they see the 
formal garden grow it strikes them as fine. "By 
Jove, that's fine," says one; "could we not start the 
men making gardens all along their lines and round 
the messes?" The CO. and the adjutant cast ad- 
miring glances at the work going on, and the 
former decides to offer prizes for the best gardens 
the various companies can produce, and he names 
a judging day far away in the loveliness of May. 
There ensues one of the most delightful springs of 
recent years, with unbroken sunshine and warm 
air, and Cartigny hums with work and happiness. 

The plan of the encampment ought to be re- 
alised. There runs the pleasant little river, where 
every day the men bathe and where the pensive 
anglers sit, some with drawn threads from kit-bags 
and bent pins, others, such as the famous character 

Paddy K , with veritable line and hook baited 

with worms for the timid little dace below, who 



i66 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

probably did not realise there was a war on till 
they saw the many khaki reflections in the water. 
Parallel with the little river runs the road going 
into the flattened town. There stands the Orderly 
Room. Opposite it runs the wooden stairway up 
the cliff to Headquarters Mess. Beyond the mess 
is the charming residence of CO. and adjutant; 
at the back are cook-houses. These buildings are 
on the right of the white brick road ; on the left are 
the pavilions of the various officers, each with its 
garden, and some way beyond them is Captain 

C 's wonderful summer-house, brought intact 

from some once beautiful French garden. The 
young Guards' officers sitting about in deck-chairs 
give the idea that one is at some beautiful resort in 
the South. And what is pleasant luxury to them 
is the joy of life for the men. 

Each company has marked out the pattern of 
its formal garden, each platoon has its special care. 
A platoon of A Company has enclosed a tent in a 
heart; a border of boxwood marks out the pattern 
of the heart — the plan is that the crimson of many 
blossoms shall blend to give a suggestion of passion 
and loyalty and suffering. Another platoon en- 
deavours to embody in floral contrast the blended 
patterns of the regimental crest — the cap-star. 
Armstrong produces wonderful thistles, the green 
part of which he obtains by just cutting the pattern 
in his turf, and the blue heads by thickly sown 
lobelia. One thistle is on each side of his gentle 
rose. F Company makes an elaborate and ambi- 
tious figure, an imitation of the floral clock that is 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 167 

to be seen in Princes Street Gardens in Edinburgh. 
Each man has found or improvised trowel and 
basket, shovel or hoe. The bayonet is forever in 
use, cutting lumps of chalk to right sizes, making 
holes in the earth, cutting and slicing wood. Pet- 
rol-tins with holes in the bottom serve as watering- 
cans. How eager the men are seeking the plants 
and then in watering and tending them. Cheerful 
water-fatigue parties are to be seen every evening 
going to and from the river. 

Primroses and daffodils and narcissi are soon 
blossoming in plenty. Lilies followed, arums and 
Solomon's-seal, and then forget-me-nots, pansies 
and violas. At the same time the perfecting of the 
designs of stones and glass, bricks and chalk, goes 
on. Armstrong's rockeries become the wonder not 
only of the battalion but of our many visitors and 
guests in this time of qualified rest. The work 
also on the railway still goes on; the garden is only 
the expression of a leisure which might otherwise 
have been spent in card-playing and noisy gregari- 
ousness. Each man on the railway knows he has 
something like a home to return to — those won- 
derful tents, some of these, too, camouflaged with 
hand-painted designs, and all of them named — 
"Auld Reekie," "The Hermit's Rest," "The Home 
from Home," "The Wigwam," "The Hotel Cecil," 
"Th' Auld House," and so forth, the names being 
sharply printed in white chalk outside. So on the 
ruins of Cartigny a new Cartigny is growing, the 
collective expression of soldiers' love of home, but, 
alas, the day of judgment is soon at hand when the 



i68 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

prizes will be given, and then, before the June sun 
shall look on the horizon, we must off to the wars 
again. 

"The inexperienced ones do not know which 
flowers to cut and which they ought to leave, ye 
see," says Armstrong, "and they haven't chosen all 
their flowers to bloom on the right day. But those 
who know are more likely to be successful for that 
reason." His thistles in any case are perfect on 
the judging day, but indeed all his works are so 
much apart in their skill and success that he is 
ruled out of the competition and has a prize to 
himself. Those who made the floral clock get first 
prize, and our right flank company with its heart 
comes second. The CO. is sole judge and arbiter, 
and he says that he is delighted beyond words at 
what the men have done, and he thanks them. 

What else happened in Cartigny? Why, in- 
numerable little things. Another unit began 
building and fitting up a hospital in the neighbour- 
hood. And, oh scandal! were not some of the new 
collapsible spring beds found in the tents of our 
intrepid gardeners? Did not the general make 
some very scathing remarks about Scotsmen? Be 
that as it may, our men in their digging came across 
a good deal of treasure-trove, things which the 
careful French had buried before fleeing in 1914, 
and they nearly always respected these finds and 
closed the earth over them again. That was not 
the case when a party of explorers came upon a 
cellar of champagne. 

There was one night when the quartermaster was 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 169 

showing lantern-slides of battalion history, and 
Harry, one of the smartest fellows, came up from 
the champagne cellar and staggered past the lan- 
tern screen in front of the officers. The picture 
being thrown was one of a certain captain, who had 
been named the sand-bag king because of his ter- 
rible passion for sand-bagging in the trenches. 
Harry pointed to the figure, and ejaculated in a 
comic happy voice, "Three . . . million . . . 
sandbags," and the whole audience roared with 
laughter. 

"Shut up, that man!" said a captain in front. 

And he wandered down to a place among the 
men looking on. 

No officer shared in that champagne. The men 
kept it for themselves with pardonable secrecv. I 
told the story of this wonderful find to an officer a 
year afterwards. "Dear me," said he, "how ex- 
traordinary! I don't think any of us had any no- 
tion that the men had found champagne in the 
course of their digging." 

They had, though. But that was their secret. 

The serene holiday at Cartigny ended with a 
Sports Competition, for the greatest encourage- 
ment was always given to all men to run and to 
jump and to surmount obstacles, to box, to wrestle, 
to play football, and the rest. There were races 
for the men and races for officers also, and then 
officers versus sergeants, and other amusing items. 
But the chief events were an open competition in 
wrestling and walking, and Armstrong undertook 
to throw any man of any regiment inside of ten 



170 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vi 

minutes, and our pet walker out-walked everybody 
else. 

"Is there a war on?" one soldier asks of another 
at such festivals. 

"Too true there is," answers his companion with 
some grimness. 

Soon the battalion returned to Ypres and fought 
at Pilkelm Ridge, at Boesinghe, and other starting- 
points and halting-points of fatal memory, till late 
autumn, when it marched away to take large share 
in the winning of the Byng Boys' victory at Bour- 
lon Wood and to stop the rot of other units in 
which indiscipline had at last set in in the waste 
time before Cambrai. 

There was a point when it was "touch and go" 
with British discipline, when in fact it had worn 
very thin. Then it was that in our regiment and in 
the brother regiments our Spartan training told. 
November Thirtieth, December the First, that bit- 
ter St. Andrew's-tide of 191 7 will always be re- 
membered by the Guards. It was then they 
stopped the rot at Gouzeaucourt. After the ordeal 
of the Bourlon Battle they were "out to rest." 
"They were sleeping," as one story has it, "when a 
messenger came to say that the Germans had broken 
through. In less than an hour the whole division 
was up again and marching forth through Metz 
and Gouzeaucourt. One of the strangest sights of 
the war was the mob of panic-stricken infantry on 
one side of the road and the stubborn and tenacious 
Guards marching past in the opposite direction to 
repair the breach. 



VI SPIRIT OF THE BATTALION 171 

Said an A.P.M. as they marched along, 
"Get out of the road, you funking throng; 
They'll put to rights what you've done wrong 
— The Guards Division!" 

{And they did.) 

There was never the slightest wavering among 
our boys — indeed they constituted some of the 
worst and most relentless enemies of the German 
Army in the great attempts at victory in the win- 
ter of 1917-18 and in the spring and summer of 
the year of victory. 

In the great story of one battalion it may be 
seen that the accumulation of battles and of suffer- 
ings from month to month and year to year begets 
a spiritual atmosphere. Each new man posted to 
the battalion is posted to the historical and spiritual 
inheritance of the battalion also. The regiment 
has left its memorials in every place where it has 
been. There are its crosses in every military acre 
of God ; there are its dead, its lonely soldiers, buried 
in No Man's Land; there are its lost dead too. 
He comes to new faces, hard eyes, set lips, patient 
jaws, faces that have seen, the faces of those who 
have killed many and lust to kill more, the lined 
faces of those who have been wounded and are still 
in the fighting ranks. The battalion gives him its 
style, its stamp and impression, and as he breathes 
the regimental air he swears the regimental oaths. 
The spirit, however, is born of many sufferings and 
endless patience. 



VII 

WAYS OF THINKING AND TALKING 

There is a disparity between the splendour of 
the army and the manners, life, and ways of the 
individual soldiers. Because of the famous deeds 
and sacrifice of men the name of the regiment is 
whispered with awe. The march past in the 
streets thrills the heart with national pride. But 
look at a group of men off duty, with their caps 
off, so that you can see the narrow foreheads lined 
with suffering, the blank eyes, and the look of 
dwarfed mind in each! Off parade the warriors 
are not only quite human — they are our familiar 
and much-criticised friends, the working-men. 

The social tradition of the old little army, how- 
ever, prevails over them, and they do not desire 
to enter Unions and strike for higher wages, shorter 
hours. They think in the army way, and talk in 
the army way, and drink in the army way. The 
traditional nicknames are taken and given by them 
as of old, and the slang-expressions of the army, 
mingled with all the current Americanisms, are 
adopted. The volunteer or conscript whose name 
is Smith becomes inevitably "Dusty Smith" and 
then "good old Dusty"; the man whose name is 
Clark becomes "Nobby Clark," and that also is 
infallible ; Wood becomes "Timber Wood" ; White 
becomes "Knocker White"; Wilson becomes "Tug 

172 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 173 

Wilson"; Fraser, "Spot Fraser"; Weston, "Kidney 
Weston," and so on. And the bread is called 
"rooty," and the jam is called "pozzy," and the fat 
is "jippo," and the porridge is "burgu." The 
guard-room is the "spud-hole," and gaol is "clink." 
If you are looking smart you're looking "very 
posh." To have nothing to do is to "look spare." 
Redundant pieces of kit are "buckshee." 

"You talk about doing a Jesus," says the cook. 

"Whatever do you mean?" 

"Why, with all you fresh lot o' fellers," says he; 
and he goes on to explain that feeding the five 
thousand is nothing to what he is being asked to do. 

"I beg your pardon, sir. I beg leave to speak, 
sir," says the culprit before his officer. 

"Shut up," says the sergeant-major. 

"What have you got to say?" asks the officer non- 
chalantly. 

"I was going to say, sir, as how this wasn't alto- 
gether my fault." 

"That will do," says the officer icily. "Two 
drills!" * :f-. 

"Fall in," says the sergeant-major. 

If you quarrel with the prize-boxer of the bat- 
talion he'll tell you that he'll "batter yer gums fer 
ye." If you tell him playfully that you'll batter 
his, he says solemnly, "No, you wouldn't, now. 
Not in Christ's creation." 

Jesus Christ is very commonly brought into talk 
for emphasis. 

"Jesus Christ couldn't escape punishment in this 
battalion." 

An officer's servant is speaking: "Mr. A 



174 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

asked me to bring the polish up on his boots with 
heel-ball." 

His crony replies: "If a man heel-balls boots 
for an officer out here, he wants something to do, 
I say. I wouldn't heel-ball a pair of boots for 
Jesus Christ." 

"Oh, I don't suppose He'd ask you to," says the 
servant glumly. 

Malapropisms abounded in common talk. The 
war was often referred to as a war of "irritation." 
One man thinks less of another because "he's done 
time for embellishment." When the influenza 
plague was at its worst, a young stretcher-bearer 
was put in charge of an isolation hospital into 
which our cases were led. "Fancy putting a young 
feller like that in charge," said one to me. "As if 
he could di-agonise." 

A recalcitrant was telling how he defied the of- 
ficer. "I sez to him, 'I'm a private soldier, yes, 
but I'm a mother's son, same's you, and I refuse to 
submerge myself any more.' " 

During the German advance on Chateau-Thierry 
and their frustrated efforts near Rheims, a com- 
rade looked over my shoulder at the map in a copy 
of the Paris Daily Mail. 

"Thank God, they haven't taken Epernay, that's 
where the Plinketty Plonk (vin blanc) comes from. 
That would have put the lid on it! And I see 
they haven't got Meaux; that's where the beer 
comes from, isn't it?" 

The atmosphere of this war has had a good deal 
in common with the atmosphere of the other old 
wars on the Continent, and despite all the new- 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 175 

fangled machinery there was more similarity in 
conditions than most people have imagined. The 
drinking, the women, the gambling have been much 
the same in the old days, and men who were fairly 
decent in their home-life became curiously rakish 
as soldiers of the King. The soldiers talked in a 
diflferent way. The public shibboleths were dif- 
ferent, but the men pronouncing them meant the 
same thing. A wit of 1745 records the conversa- 
tion of Tom the Grenadier and his friend Jack 
who lies in gaol: 

Who should pass in martial Geer 

But swagg'ring Tom the Grenadier: — 

"Hollo! — now Thomas — what's the Crack?" 

Cries Thomas — "Bad enough. Friend Jack: 

They say — (damn him!) — the Young Pretender 

Bids fair to be our Faith's Defender; 

And that the Rebels have great Hope, 

To bring in Charley and the Pope." 

Quo' Jack with lengthened rueful Face, 

"Good Heav'n forbid: — If that's the case 

Our liberty is gone, — and we 

Must, Frenchmen-Wkt, bear Slavery." 

"Our Liberty!" cries Tom, "What's worse, 

A thousand Times a greater curse. 

If the Pretender mounts the Throne 

Damme — Our dear Religion's gone." 

The wit thinks it very ironical that the man in gaol 
should prate of freedom, and that a Grenadier, of 
all persons, should be concerned about religion. 
Tom the Grenadier of 1745 would have fitted 
fairly well into the social life of the soldier in 
France in 1918. He would have been drinking 
the bad beer and cursing its quality, and his Ian- 



176 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

guage would not have been more lurid than that 
of a Bill Brown of to-day. He would have made 
as free with French feminine charm. He would 
have staked his poor wages on the cast of the dice 
as easily as then. 

The atmosphere of Wellington's army was ad- 
mirably reproduced in those tableaux from 
Hardy's Dynasts, which we had in London some 
years ago. Hardy was proved somehow to have 
penetrated in his poetry to the eternal nature of 
the army. 

That eternal nature was realised again in France, 
and possibly nothing was more characteristic than 
the widespread playing at dice and the game of 
Crown-and-Anchor. The same game, or versions 
of it, must have been played in the wars of Queen 
Anne and the Georges, and on the camping- 
grounds before Waterloo itself. When we were 
waiting for the transport, with men of all manner 
of other units in the great covered quay at South- 
ampton, there must have been a dozen Crown-and- 
Anchor boards out, and eager crowds at each, and 
when we got to France nearly every estaminet had 
its game going on. 

There is a board divided into six sections, each 
section marked with a different emblem: 

The Heart. 
The Crown. 
The Diamond. 
The Spade. 
The Anchor. 
The Club. 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 177 

The man who owns the board has dice, which 
he rattles in a wooden dice-cup, and on each facet 
of the little bone cubes which he shakes is a repre- 
sentation of one of the emblems. 



9 


* 





# 4> ♦ 



The owner ought to have a certain amount of 
money to show as "the bank," from which he can 
pay if luck should go in favour of the players. 
EsLch man playing puts what money he wishes to 
stake on the emblem of his choice, if, after being 
shaken, the dice shows his emblem, he wins back 
his own stake and as much more again. On the 
other hand, if his emblem does not come up, he 
forfeits his stake. There is generally a crowd try- 
ing their fortune at the same time, and most of the 
emblems are covered with notes. The experience 
of a soldier's life in escaping death and wounds im- 
presses him with the idea of lucky chance. War 
breeds gambling as a natural and inevitable fruit. 
Many soldiers are devotees of luck and have their 
theories of chances, and believe one night they'll 
break the bank, i'hey watch the dice and the 
board intently, and wait until some emblem has not 
come up for seven or eight times, and then they 
back it tor all they are worth, believing in a law of 
chances — some fantastic notion which reigns in 
their simple mind that chances are bound to work 
out even in the end. A young fellow who used to 
be very hard up and suddenly became affluent, ex- 



178 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

plained to me that he was now working on an in- 
fallible system. He explained that he would start 
by putting a franc on the board; if he lost, he put 
on two francs; if he lost again, he put on four 
francs; if again, sixteen francs. It was incredible 
that he should not by then have a lucky turn. But 
I remarked that even if he won then he only made 
a net gain of one franc. 

"That's the worst that can happen," said he. 

Where there is no theory of chances there is often 
a sentimental bias; young soldiers stake on the an- 
chor and the heart, ambitious ones on the crown, 
dare-devils on the diamond and the spade. 

It should be explained that each of the emblems 
except the heart has its nickname. Thus the crown 
is the sergeant-major; the spade is referred to as 
the shovel; the diamond is called the curse; the 
anchor is the meat-hook. Any one putting money 
both on the crown and the anchor is supporting 
the name of the game, though the commonest name 
of the game is Bumble and Buck. 

The man who holds the board keeps up an 
extraordinary stream of patter, to which it is 
amusing to listen. Men are evidently spurred on 
and excited by this chatter, as if it were evidence 
of fortunes being made. 

"Here we are again. The Sweaty Socks! Cox 
& Co., the Army Bankers, badly bent, but never 
broke, safe as the Bank of England, undefeated 
because they never fought; the rough and tough, 
the old and bold! Where you lay we pay. Come 
and put your money with the lucky old man. I 
touch the money, but I never touch the dice. Any 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 179 

more for the lucky old heart? Make it even on 
the lucky old heart. Are you all done, gentle- 
men? . . . Are you all done? . . . The diamond, 
meat-hook, and lucky old sergeant-major. (He 
shakes the dice again.) Now, then, will any one 
down on his luck put a little bit of snow (some 
silver) on the curse? Does any one say a bit of 
snow on the old hook? Has no one thought of the 
pioneer's tool? Are you all done, gentlemen? 
Are you all done? . . . Cocked dice are no man's 
dice. Change your bets or double them! Now, 
then, up she comes again. The mud-rake, the 
shamrock, and the lucky old heart. Copper to 
copper, silver to silver, and gold to gold. We 
shall have to drag the old anchor a bit. (Rattles 
the dice.) Now who tries his luck on the name 
of the game?" 

And so on for hours! Piles of notes and coin 
are taken and stuffed rapidly into an old cigar-box. 
The crowd round the board never slackens. 
Every now and then the owner of the board sorts 
out from his winnings twelve of the worst-looking 
francs, and orders a bottle of champagne for his 
hangers-on and the good of the estaminet and the 
company. This sets the winners buying drinks, 
and is so profitable to the public-house that they 
accept the bad notes for the champagne without a 
murmur. 

I always felt a curious prejudice against taking 
part in the game myself, even for the fun of it. I 
always felt I could win heaps if I gambled, for 
I've always been so lucky in life, such a good Provi- 
dence has had charge over me. 



i8o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

"Why does Steeven never gamble? Did ye 
never make a gamble, man?" 

"Oh, no. I think it would be unfair. I'm so 
fearfully lucky at all that sort of thing." 

This very much impressed some of them, and 
they used to beg from me to go and gamble so that 
my money should give them luck. I used to save 
those torn and defaced notes which the French re- 
fused to accept in payment for their eggs and for 
what they called coffee, and give them to a few 
devotees of the game. 

I noticed, however, that they never won anything 
with my money, but sometimes even were reduced 
to risk some money they had not gleaned in this 
way. The good luck was changed to bad luck in 
their hands. 

I asked our chaplain one day what he thought 
of the Bumble and Buck game. But although it 
was in full swing in every village, he had never 
seen it, and I had to explain. I thought that an 
interesting illustration of the way the chaplain's 
rank of captain was a hindrance to him. The 
game was illegal, and therefore no officer must see 
it being played. 

But certainly there was not much harm in the 
gambling. Money was lost, but then money was a 
lighter article out there than at home. There was 
nothing much to spend it on. 

Bumble and Buck, cards, cigarettes, and when 
out of the line beer, vin blanc, and flirtation with 
French girls made the chief mental relief of the 
men, And somehow it seems natural in the army 



VII THINKING AND TALKING i8i 

to be on the level of these pleasures. I opened 
boxes of camp library stuff several times and saw^ 
it distributed, but of reading and thinking in a 
serious way there was little. 

In the fighting battalion there were few men of 
any education or of studious nature. The edu- 
cated men got broken by the training in Little 
Sparta, or in some other way "escaped drafts," 
and the working-men remained. I do not know 
what it was in other regiments, but at the front 
ours was absolutely a working-men's regiment as 
far as the men were concerned. The officers were 
aristocracy and the men proletariat. If my health 
had broken, I think it would have been easy for 
me to have got away — had I so desired. And, as 
it was, I could have obtained a commission had I 
wished. Generally speaking, any one of education 
could get away from our ranks. But I remained, 
and all about me were the British working-class in 
khaki. 

These men who were so alike, so indisputably 
one as soldiery, had been recruited from every 
shape and form of industrialism. They were 
taken from the factory and the loom, from the 
mines and the docks and the yards, from builders' 
ladders and trestles and the artisans' tables and 
tools, from the plough and from the fishing-boats 
and the nets. Though they were our cannon-fod- 
der or our "bayonets," they were also the vital stuff 
of our vast democracy, the men who drive the great 
machine of our civilisation — perhaps the most sig- 
nificant people of the time. I was among them 
and not of them, but heart and mind never ceased 



i82 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

to be occupied with them and their problems, and 
with our England which they make and may re- 
make. 

Every one looking from above downward has 
said : The men are splendid! That formula is 
the only fitting one for those who have suffered 
and done so much, bearing the frightful physical 
burdens of war with a cheerfulness which was 
never extinguished. But there is something more 
to be thought about the condition of the men — if 
not said. Even if they make ideal soldiers they 
have not had ideal conditions of life in our civilisa- 
tion, they have not had the chances of education 
which they merited, and many of them live or- 
dinarily in a state of ignorance and immorality 
which tarnish the real glory of Britain. 

Doubtless when a man has died in battle it does 
not matter whether he knew who Shakespeare was 
or whether he was a customer of the woman who 
lurketh at the corner. He is sped, and God will 
forgive him and give him another chance to get 
the glorious things he missed. The army point of 
view would certainly be that ignorance or immor- 
ality or anything of that sort was no drawback to 
good soldiering. Many would incline to the view 
that these things generally characterised a better 
soldier than did their absence. But besides look- 
ing at the matter from the point of view of war 
and death we can and must look from the other 
point of view — namely of peace and life. 

I made at one time a review of our situation and 
endeavoured to provide an answer to the question, 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 183 

What is the ignorance of the working-man as re- 
vealed when he is taken away from his trade and 
put into khaki? 

I found that no one knew anything of literature. 
Our national glories of the word were naught to 
my mates. They were deaf to the songs which 
should thrill and inspire. Shakespeare was a mere 
name. Tennyson and Browning and Keats were 
unknown. If you quoted to them from Keats you 
must explain that a man called Keats wrote it. If 
the soldiers opened the books they could not grasp 
what the poems were about. Our prized language 
when used in a noble way was like a foreign 
tongue. If you spoke to them in normal correct 
English they did not quite understand and you had 
to re-express yourself in halting working-man's 
English, full of "you see" and "it's like this" and 
expletives and vulgarisms, or the working-man 
would be rather offended at the way you spoke and 
imitate you in a drawl when your back was turned. 
Dickens and Scott, again, were little more than 
names. Occasionally one found a lover of Dick- 
ens who craved in the trenches for Pickwick Pa- 
pers but found it not; occasionally one met a man 
who loved the tales and romances of Sir Walter 
Scott. 

I met one day an old soldier who had read 
Gray's Elegy and had visited Stoke Poges Church- 
yard to feel again what Gray had felt, and he told 
me with pride as if he alone knew it, how General 
Wolfe had said he would rather have written the 
Elegy than take Quebec. 



184 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

"Tell me," said he, "there was a feller th'other 
day had a dispute with me. How d'ye pronounce 
the word p-i-a-n-i-s-t?" 

"Pianist," said I. 

"What?" said he. "Not piannist! Oh, well, 
you're wrong, and it doesn't matter. The proper 
pronunciation is piawwist." 

He was quiet for a few moments, deeply morti- 
fied. "Oh, well," said he at last, "I don't think 
pronunciation is so important as some make out." 

"Oh, no," said I. "To care for Gray's Elegy is 
much more than correct pronunciation." And we 
became friends from that day. 

One man knowing the Elegy was good. But 
who knew Campbell? The simple beauty and 
pathos of Campbell's soldier poems, whispered as 
it were to the soldier's heart, were as if they had 
not been written. "Our bugles sang truce for the 
night cloud had lowered," "Few, few shall part 
where many meet." 

The most hackneyed quotations known to the 
middle and upper classes were mysteries here, and 
having a habit of saying such words in jest I have 
often had to explain to a comrade, much to my 
own astonishment, what I mean when I say "Oh, 
Cromwell, Cromwell, had I but served my God 
with half the zeal I served my King, he would not 
in mine old age have left me naked to mine en- 
emies." 

Or, 

Charge, Chester, charge ! 
On, Mr. Boffin, on! 

quotations which so often rise to the mind as com- 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 185 

merits on incidents in army life. It is no use re- 
proaching your fellow-soldier, "Et tu Brute," or 
exclaiming, "What, can the devil speak true!" for 
he won't understand what you're talking about. 
On expressing my surprise to a companion on this 
count one day he replied: 

"I'm sorry and all that kind o' muck, old pally, 
but ye see I just wasn't taught any o' that stuff when 
I was at school." 

Not one in a thousand knows the watchwords of 
the war, such as the words which Kipling gave : 

Who stands if Freedom fall? 
Who dies if England live? 

One finds such a historic monition as "Nelson ex- 
pects that every man this day will do his duty" is 
only known by a few, and that in a false way. But 
when some general perverts those lines to "Eng- 
land expects that every tank will do its damndest," 
"doing its damndest" rather hits their humour and 
"catches on." 

And if the working-men are deaf to what is na- 
tional, they are almost as deaf to the transient great- 
ness of our times. Not for them did Rupert 
Brooke write the most beautiful sonnet of a dec- 
ade. I was at pains to find out who had read Mr. 
Britling Sees It Through. Not one could I find, 
and though that clever novel was so astonishingly 
popular it was not so because the working-man was 
reading it. It was not providing the working-man 
with a voice about the war and life. Hall Caine is 
read, and I once heard a superior recruit speak of 
his writing as good healthy literature. But even 



1 86 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

Hall Caine is too intellectual at times. Our ardent 
writers such as Masefield, Chesterton, Conrad, and 
Bennett find their readers among what Russian 
revolutionary soldiers and workmen call indiscrim- 
inately the bourgeois, but not among the rank and 
file. 

I canvassed a room one day and found that only 
three in it had heard of H. G. Wells, and one 
thought he wrote for John Bull and had a ''flashy 
style." The name of Bernard Shaw was better 
known because of the greater number of newspaper 
remarks concerning him. 

I met one day a man called Shaw and asked him 
if he knew anything of his namesake the dramatist. 

"Yes," said he, "I named my little boy Bernard 
after him so that when he grew up he might have 
some bloomin' luck perhaps." 

"Did you ever read any of his plays or see one 
acted at a theatre?" 

"No. I saw one of his books once, but I never 
read it . . . yes, yes, Bernard Shaw the great au- 
thor — there's a statue of him somewhere in the 
West End." 

One day a sergeant came to me and said : "You 
used to write for the Times, didn't you?" 

"Yes," said I. 

"I sent two jokes to Answers last week," said he. 

"Then we are colleagues and fellow-workers," 
said I ; and I always was on speaking terms with 
that sergeant. 

What the men do read is Florence Warden and 
Charles Garvice, and books with such titles as 
"The Temptress," "Red Rube's Revenge," "The 



VII THINKING AND TALKING 187 

Lost Diamonds" — gaudy adventure stories which 
can be torn for cigarette lights later on. All pre- 
fer, however, to look at pictures rather than read. 
Some even seem a little troubled when they receive 
long letters from their wives or sweethearts. 

They read such papers as London Mail, London 
Opinion, and Ideas, and voraciously devour John 
Bull, which has the art or the knack to express 
grousing in print. Many newspapers are pro- 
vided for them free, and I used to find it rather 
strange in reading-rooms and libraries at Little 
Sparta and in London, that the Express and the 
Sketch and the Mirror got dirty and torn each day, 
whereas the Times and the Morning Post remained 
comparatively untouched. 

Then though we possessed many splendid old 
national songs, you'd listen in vain to hear one 
sung by the soldiers. Or if the old airs were sung, 
they were merely the accompaniment of modern 
words or parodies. The imitation of music-hall 
humour and music-hall singing was most wide- 
spread. In fact they had the culture of the music- 
hall. 

They are called to fight for their country in the 
latest of a series of historic wars, but they know 
next to nothing of our history or even of its fa- 
mous names. Who was Henry the Fifth? What 
did Henry the Eighth do beyond having 
wives? Wolsey? Raleigh and Drake? Crom- 
well? Marlborough? Pitt? They know the 
Duke of Wellington overcame Napoleon, but I 
heard an officer ask a man for the date of the battle 
of Waterloo and he could not say. George the 



i88 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vii 

First, the Second, the Third, Fourth and Fifth — 
they don't know much about that series. Edward 
VII. meant more, and they generally refer to the 
present King as Teddie. 

"What did Teddie say to you?" they asked of 
me after the King's inspection of us. "Was Teddie 
looking at our kit?" they asked. 

Yet each and every one of these men in khaki 
had some technical knowledge with reference to 
the use of some tool. It might be a very limited 
knowledge and a very small tool, but it earned his 
living and made him a part of the great industrial 
machine of England. 



VIII 

FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 

The vast concourse of the new drafts was dis- 
tributed along the line. Most went to the de- 
fence of Amiens from the onslaught from the 
north; we to the defence of Arras from encircle- 
ment from the south. The position was briefly 
this: The Germans, following up their immense 
initial success of March 21, were advancing along 
the whole line from before Amiens to Albert and 
from Albert to Arras. British units were retreat- 
ing before the face of the Germans, following 
partly their own inclinations and partly the orders 
of the Staff. Our division, I believe, acted to a 
great extent on its own responsibility in going for- 
ward when every other unit was going back. It 
marched forward to meet and stop the Germans, 
and it found that the real defenders of the line 
had quitted the field. There was some difficulty 
in locating the enemy, and whilst seeking him the 
division was shelled by its own artillery. When 
at last we found the German, he also found us, 
and coming forward in mass formation endeav- 
oured to stampede our men as he had stampeded 
so many units before us on that and other parts of 
the field. By all accounts the enemy was most 
enraged to find the Guards in his way. But, con- 

i8q 



I90 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS viii 

fident in his numbers and in the impetus of vic- 
tory, he did not doubt but that he could force a 
way over and through. The discipline of the di- 
vision permitted of no retirement, and the men 
stood to their guns and fired rapidly at the great 
living target of the enemy sweeping down upon 
them. All the time the men were firing they 
knew that if the enemy's numbers got the upper 
hand there would be a terrible hand-to-hand strug- 
gle in the trenches, and that in the end most of 
them would be lying killed or wounded on the bat- 
tle-ground. But all the great hostile attacks with- 
ered away under the hand of death, and the line 
was held. It was a great service, for if the Ger- 
mans had broken through there also. Arras would 
have fallen and the whole position might well have 
proved irremediable. 

Though in our draft only one was wounded and 
none was killed, it was a terrible impression of the 
reality of war for the new men. 'Tm going to 
make my peace with God before ever I go up to 
the line again," said Fitz when he came out of it. 
"Each Minnewerfer coming at us was like a row 
of houses rushing through the air," said another. 

"Poor old K was bobbing like a baby," said 

another. All seemed surprised by the war and 
scared, as if they had never imagined the thing 
before they saw it. In each man's eyes there was 
the sign of shock and strain. One very dull boy 
of eighteen, who had astonished me once by telling 
a questioning CO. that the South African War 
was fought in Egypt, seemed suddenly to have been 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 191 

wakened though not to have become articulate. 
He now laughed like Charley Bates, and said "00- 
hoo" and "not 'arf" when asked what he thought 
of the front and did he find it bad. 

However, after this initial flutter all became 
quiet. The Germans had taken large measure of 
the discipline of the Guards and wanted no more 
of it. The success was pronounced and remark- 
able: already by the 30th of March the French 
newspapers were very congratulatory. So we read 
at that time in Le Journal these flattering words 
about our division: 

Ces grands gaillards, tallies en athletes, ne orient ni s'agitent. 
lis courent a la melee avec ce meme flegme et cette meme 
fierte que je notai void trois ans, un matin d'hiver ou, sur un 
plateau au sud d'Abbeville, j'allai les voir passer en revue par 
le due de Connaught. lis incarnent la tenacite britanniquc. 
Ce sont les machoires carrees. Ou la garde est engagee, la 
frontiere de guerre ne recule jamais. 

So remarkable was the discipline of the division 
that certain battalions were detached from it and 
sent to stiffen and give backbone to other parts of 
the army, and they helped to gain the brilliant vic- 
tory of Ayette. From Ayette they were taken and 
thrown into the scale on the Ypres Front when the 
second huge German attack was launched. The 
new drafts from Little Sparta went straight into 
the battle-line, and many a man was killed before 
he was properly registered or known in the bat- 
talion to which he was posted. They participated 
in the most heroic and terrible exploit of the war, 
and fought to the last man near I'Epinette on the 



192 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS viii 

Hazebrouck road. Nothing that was written 
then or that can be written afterwards can do jus- 
tice to their tenacity and brilliance and to their 
sacrifice in Belgium. Units on both flanks gave 
way, and they were enveloped and outnumbered 
by an enemy who had brought field-guns up to the 
positions of machine-guns and fired point-blank at 
them. There it was that the nightmare circle of 
Germans enveloped the heroic Captain Price and 
his men, and encroached upon them with the visage 
of inevitable death or bondage, and he led his men 
out and drove them back at the point of the bay- 
onet, and extended the area of the circle, which 
nevertheless again encroached and encroached. 
Three times he charged them and then died fight- 
ing. One wounded corporal lying in a ditch 
crawled back at night and told the tale, the only 
survivor of a whole company. The captain was 
awarded a V.C., and every man who perished with 
him earned a sort of deathless glory. There never 
was in any annals a more marvellous stubbornness 
or a greater example of what discipline will do. 
Among those who fell were men who had but just 
set foot in France — some in fact of the last hundred 
thousand. And such a deed, though it could not 
save those who performed it, must have gained an 
enormous victory over the German morale and 
have put also a great inspiration into all the other 
troops in Flanders. The enemy's onset was 
brought to a standstill, and that meant the ruin of 
his vast designs. I was invited one day to go over 
and talk to the colonel and some of the men who 
survived, and I saw to what dimensions this heroic 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 193 

fourth brigade had shrunk, all that was left of 
three battalions, in tents in one field near La Cau- 
chie. I think it proved impossible to find recruits 
to make up the numbers of these battalions; they 
were sent to the coast to recuperate and wait. In 
the autumn campaign most of the survivors were 
drafted to other battalions in the brigades which 
remained. 

On the Arras-Ayette Front, where most of us 
lay, the line became serene and no one ever saw an 
enemy. Probably all the troops except patrols 
had been withdrawn. Only the artillery method- 
ically shelled our lines and the roads. There was 
current among us a quaint parody of Browning: 

God's in His heaven, 
The Guard's in the line, 

which was whispered from man to man, though 
probably no one in the ranks of our battalion could 
have quoted the original. However, the fact was 
true: the Guard was in the line and all was right 
with the world. There ensued on the Arras Front 
a halcyon summer which was not to be interrupted 
until late August, when the great advance of the 
autumn campaign began. 

So we were left not so much with the war as 
with France, and we both lived with her and con- 
sidered her in her aspects of partial destruction and 
love among the ruins. It was in a region that had 
suffered greatly during the early campaigns. The 
eye ached to look at the ruins, and was continually 
preoccupied building them up again. It was the 
region of Berles-au-Bois, where the antique church 



194 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS vill 

is a forlorn ruin beside the debris of the homes of 
its parishioners. It was beyond the flat misery of 
Monchy and the wreckage of charming Blairville 
and the sinister gas-stricken woodland of Adinfer. 

From these places the war had receded, but with 
the onset of March 21 they were engulfed again. 
The peasants and villagers had come back after 
their first exile and now were driven into a second. 
One of the most pathetic phenomena of the whole 
region were the new shacks put up by the Ameri- 
can Relief Committee for the returning homeless 
ones now wrecked in turn by shells, these shacks 
lying wrenched and torn and yet so obviously new 
and clean, having been lived in such a short while. 

The peasants, loath as ever to leave their lands, 
clung to their farms and their cottages to the last 
possible moment, and they were to be seen every- 
where, cheerfully working even under fire, the in- 
stinct which rooted them to the soil they knew be- 
ing much stronger than any instinct of fear. The 
women in the fields greatly won the admiration of 
our men for the life of toil they led, and they re- 
flected how few women at home would be ready to 
live the hard life of a French peasant woman. 
Whether they would have cared to see their own 
mothers and sisters thus enslaved to the earth is 
not so certain as that they admired it in the French. 

The seeming piety of the French home with all 
its sacred pictures and relics was rather puzzling 
to the Tommy, but he realised that it did not make 
any difference to character, and that the reli- 
giously-minded girl was as accessible to his love- 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 195 

making as if she had no religion, and that the piety 
of the old wife did not cause her to charge less for 
her eggs. The conventionality and conservatism 
of the people's lives were very remarkable, and not 
what one would have expected in the land of so 
many revolutions. There was on every hand a 
curious simplicity of mind, and many were "stupid 
to the point of piety." The atmosphere, especially 
on Sunday, when the people overloaded with 
clothes crept sluggishly and obediently to church, 
was mediaeval. 

I was billeted for a while in a farm-house where 
the husband was at the war and the wife and wife's 
mother had an antediluvian intelligence. They 
had had a shell through their roof one day, but to 
them everything was funny — the shells, the rain, 
the mud, the drilling in the yard. The two girls 
of fifteen and thirteen deceived mother and grand- 
mother all the time, smiled on us always, and were 
kissed and squeezed by all the soldiers who came in. 

"I suppose you'll marry an English soldier," 
said I to Marie one day. 

"Oh, no; Mamma doesn't think it would be good 
to marry while the war is on. Nothing arranged 
in these times is binding. But afterwards I'll 
marry a Frenchman." 

"But you love So-and-so very much. Won't you 
be sorry when the battalion goes away?" 

"Oh, no, it's nothing." 

I said I was shocked. 

"C'est la guerre," said she, and waved her hand 
and smiled. 



196 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS viii 

"What do you think of these French girls? 
Aren't they astonishingly forward with us?" I 
asked a fellow-soldier. 

"They can't help it, it's their blood," said he. 

I wondered whether Mamma and Grandmamma 
who were and looked so phenomenally stupid, had 
the same wiles and smiles as Marie when they were 
young. 

There was a great deal of mixed war life and 
village life in the region immediately behind the 
lines. The villages swarmed with troops. Every 
mother who possessed a pretty girl seemed to use 
her as an innocent lure to sell bad coffee or wine 
to the soldiers who crowded in to flirt with her and 
say things to her they could never have said to an 
English girl. I think the French girls who re- 
peated and threw back at the men all the bad lan- 
guage they heard had little notion what it all 
meant. 

What gay scenes there were in those large square 
yards in front of the farm-houses: the girls 
on the verandah, the men in and out of the barns 
where they were billeted! The roads were con- 
tinually possessed by a swirl of motor-lorries and 
horse-limber waggons, and now and then a com- 
pany of men marching to or from parade-ground 
would appear. In the evenings the band played 
beside the church — sometimes a first-class military 
band from London, containing many excellent mu- 
sicians; more often our pipers or the pipers of the 
Micks. 

April mud gave way to May sunshine and 
drought. There was a respite and sanctuary from 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 197 

the war in the development of spring. The 9th of 
May, Ascension Day, was an especially lovely one, 
which I well remember. May must be twice May 
to be perfect. 'Twas so this day. I had been sent 
to a neighbouring headquarters with a message, and 
at noon I sat for a while beside a high hawthorn 
on a daisy-covered bank. The war ceased to ex- 
ist; only beauty was infinitely high and broad 
above and infinitely deep within. Birds again 
sang in the heavens and in the heart — after a long 
sad silence, as it seemed. On the road below me a 
never-ending stream of Indians with dusky brows 
and brown turbans went riding by, and lorries and 
limbers plunged and struggled — the long caravan 
of war. Sulphurous splashes of smoke and sharp 
buffeting concussions broke from a camouflaged 
battery in a ravine, and it seemed as if the verdure 
of spring threatened to put hands over the cannon's 
mouth and stop its male voice, as a wife might 
stop her husband saying words she did not wish to 
hear. Beyond the ravine was a wood, over which, 
flying low like an owl staring for mice, the aero- 
planes crept through the atmosphere, screening 
from enemy observance their exit and entrance 
from battle air. In another direction a deflated 
khaki-coloured observation-balloon wallowed in 
bright dandelion fields. Coming down the road 
appeared chains of artillery traction-engines with 
negro drivers, and squads of Lewis gunners with 
their fatal iron tubes. Yet all the while in five- 
acre fields the quiet peasants with bent backs looked 
as if they had stolen out of Millet's pictures. On 
the right in the distance was the wonderful spire 



198 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS viil 

of the village church of P , on the left were the 

staggering ruins of the tower of B au-B . 

In the evening I was in P , and the pipers 

were playing at the foot of the beautiful church. 
Huge disjected lumps of stone lay about; they had 
fallen when the church was last hit by a shell. It 
was Ascension Day and the band played well, but 
it could not cause the stones to rise up to their 
places. The flare and stridency of the pipes 
thrilled the blood in the veins and made one feel 
that the something in honour of which they played 
must be splendid and important, but the grey stone 
wall of the church seemed nevertheless wrapped in 
its own silence and remote from all of us as if ex- 
isting in another plane. The spire above seemed 
to be invested with a power which was more than 
our human power of which we were so proud. 
However, the pipers and drummers fulfilled their 
programme, and a haphazard collection of earthy- 
looking peasants stood and stared and listened. So 
the vulgar war went on, but the fourteenth century 
still pointed a sharp forefinger to the sky. 

One day whilst stationed at Sombrin the alarm 
of a German "break-through" was given, and the 
division was rushed up toward the line to save 
the day. It was only a test, but it was exceedingly 
well carried out. Each company cheered when 
it was told it had to go and stop the Germans. 
With us a brigade of the new American troops was 
co-operating, and our fellows saw the "Yanks" for 
the first time. They were a magnificent body of 
men and marched with wonderful verve, singing 
all the way. "John Brown's body" seemed to be 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 199 

the most popular air, and the words they sang were 
amusing: 

All we ever do is sign the pay-roll 
But we never draw a God-damn cent. 

They shouted to us, "You can go home now" and 
"We've come to win the war," and we believed 
them and were glad. 

The summer, as I have said, was serene. Never- 
theless the menace of another great attack hung 
over all the region of our front like a cloud. The 
French were told that we had come, and that 
therefore they were absolutely safe from a further 
attack. For we never retired. The Americans 
were pointed to as another guarantee of safety. 
Still, it did not need sharp eyes to see that every 
imaginable precaution was being taken in case 
Fritz should drive us out. On many wells began 
to appear the notice "Prepared for Demolition," 
and on bridges, "Warning : this Bridge is mined/' 
On the trees alongside the roadways were gashes 
where explosives had been inserted in the trunks 
for the purpose of readily blowing them up and 
bringing them down across the road — thus to ob- 
struct the enemy transport in the course of his ad- 
vance. Buildings were mined. Long stretches of 
the highway ran over sleeping cordite which but 
a touch would awake. Traps of all kinds were 
prepared for the enemy by our ingenious engineers. 
One read on detachable posts such notices as W \ 
D No. QQ. Booby Trap. About the villages for 
leagues back, tens of miles back, the Chinamen and 
Labour men, "camouflaged heroes," as we sarcas- 



200 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS viil 

tically named them, were busy digging breastworks 
for delaying actions. All inhabitants were offi- 
cially warned that they stayed on at their peril. 
Meanwhile our "intelligence" reported large con- 
centrations of enemy forces at points upon our line, 
and we were ready for a destructive retreat on the 
lines of the model retirement of the Germans in 
March 1917, when they abandoned the battle-fields 
of the Somme. It is perhaps doubtful whether 
we should have chopped the fruit trees as they did. 
But we should have made a desert for the enemy to 
dwell in. 

How good that it all turned out to be superflu- 
ous, that victory should favour us instead of him, 
and that instead of his over-running our lines we 
should penetrate far into his! Yet so it was, and 
the story destined to begin August 191 8, was one 
of advance and of relief. 

None of the precautionary arrangements were 
destined to be used, and when the reinforcements 
and the transport left to follow up our victorious 
advance a curious stillness and peace seemed to be 
born in the villages. The notices on the wells, the 
tickets on the breastworks — B-support, C-switch, 
etc. — seemed as unwonted as did the clay-cut 
trenches themselves. With relief every one re- 
alised that the trees would not be blown up and 
that a certificate of immunity had been handed by 
destiny to all manner of bridges and roads and 
homes. The whole atmosphere changed, a new 
light was shed on whole countrysides. Yes, be- 
cause the cloud had lifted. Into this new light ex- 
iles returned once more to try and continue the old 



VIII FRANCE UNDER THE CLOUD 201 

life as they felt God had intended it always to be 
led. 

But if peace crept into the land from which we 
advanced following the enemy, what madness and 
calamity of destruction poured into the land to 
which we advanced and from which mile by mile 
we drove the Germans! There, as if to be re- 
venged for some baulked prey, the spirit of the war 
expressed itself with all the rage of its possession. 

Peace settled down upon the stones of Monchy- 
au-Bois and the ridges of Ransart; the menace of 
the occasional shell was lifted from the Arras- 
Doullens road. The railway resumed its service 
to Arras, and from the heights of Blairville engines 
could be seen puffing along a new stretch of coun- 
try. Arras itself crept away from the fires of de- 
struction. The receding tide of battle foamed 
backward to Bapaume; and whilst Ayette and 
Achiet gained the sanctuary of peace, the intensi- 
fied rage of the war descended upon Croisilles, St. 
Leger, Riencourt and many another staying-place 
of enemy power. Dead men once more lay un- 
buried in the tumbled villages, for there was no 
time to bury so many. Our arms went on, and 
still the clouds went on lifting from France — not 
now, however, from half-destroyed homes and pa- 
tient peasants, but from totally destroyed country 
devoid of home and habitation. The complete 
absence of civilians gave the rescued ruins of vil- 
lages the aspect of cemeteries and ancient ruins of 
cities — as if in the far past a civilisation had ob- 
tained and been destroyed. That is what we saw 
when the fire-curtain lifted. 



IX 

WAR THE BRUTALISER 

There is more experience in the private soldier's 
life than there is in that of the officer. The reality 
of the army and the war is more sharply felt in 
the ranks. It is not possible to deceive oneself so 
much about war or to be deceived by events and 
actions themselves. You escape from the conven- 
tional and from a certain artificial form and style. 
Indeed, to serve in the ranks is an unique oppor- 
tunity to get to know the working-man. Perhaps 
there are not many people who want to know him; 
they only want him to do his job and keep them 
comfortable. But if any one desires to know him 
as he is in his natural strength and weakness, with 
his foibles and his charms and also with all his 
repellent deficiencies of grammar and taste, the 
private's uniform in the war afforded a short way. 

It was a great experience. You learned about 
yourself and your neighbour what you never knew 
before. You shed many illusions about both per- 
sonalities, and through all the bullying and petting 
and camaraderie you learned much of human na- 
ture. 

I was undeceived a great deal. I used to think 
too lightly of men going to war and of the sacrifice 
they make and what they undergo. I used to think 

2Q2 



IX WAR THE BRUTALISER 203 

courage and verve and human idealism made the 
real driving power of the army in time of v^ar, 
and it seemed that in putting on the King's uniform 
one put on the ideal. But we all of us soon learned 
that the uniform betokened hard duty and bond- 
age, a durance such as that of slave or prisoner. 
Though men were generous in offering themselves 
to fight for their country, or even in agreeing to 
fight when called upon to do so, there was no at- 
mosphere of generosity and national gratitude, but 
rather an atmosphere of every man expecting his 
neighbour to shirk what he could. Private sol- 
diers were all passive. Non-commissioned officers 
were active and drove privates to do what was re- 
quired. The real driving power lay in brutal 
thought and word and act. The open sesame of 
the army was the characteristic of brutality, and I 
noticed that men who were not in themselves bru- 
tal cultivated brutality to get the army tone. 

The characteristic word of command was not 
merely enforced by firmness, by peremptoriness, 
by loudness. The vital thing in it must be menace ; 
it must be an intimidating bawl, and must not only 
be heard, but must act on the nerves. Soldiers 
must be drilled as a Tartar drives his horses — by 
frightening them all the way. 

The regimental sergeant-major is like a big yard- 
dog. He rushes forward and barks menacingly 
at any one who appears on his line of vision. He 
waits outside billets and pounces on luckless sol- 
diers, snarling, "What're you on?" Rarely by any 
chance does he exhibit a kindly interest in any one. 
He does not act the part of a father to the soldiers. 



204 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ix 

His position forbids it. He is paid to be terrible, 
and whatever he may have been whilst unpromoted, 
he is due to take up this role of being terrible 
when he gets to be R.S.M. He then cultivates the 
voice. And he soon learns to love his authority. 
He ought really to devote his attention to checking 
the ways of N.C.O.'s, and have no appetite for such 
small fry as privates. I have seen a very clumsy 
and broken-down drill-sergeant rise to the dizzy 
height of R.S.M. probably through sagacious 
toadying to officers, and such a man, whilst easy- 
going as a drill-sergeant, became at once a Tartar 
as sergeant-major, and set out to take down the 
pride of the really smart men whose appearance 
was perchance an ofifence to the "funniest man who 
ever wore a bumble and buck board on his sleeve." 
I remember how he brought up a wonderful C.O.'s 
orderly for insubordination, and the latter was re- 
duced to defending himself before the CO. 

''It's like this, sir, if it's a choice between offend- 
ing you and the sergeant-major of my battalion, 
I'd rather ofifend the sergeant-major." 

"Admonished," says the CO. 

"Fall in," says the R.S.M. in rage, and then, as 
the defendant orderly is dismissed, he rushes after 
him and calls out, "You've got too much to say for 
yourself, you have. Take his name for hair- 
cut." 

So next day the orderly will be brought up be- 
fore the adjutant. 

However, a sense of humour dilutes any bitter- 
ness which such petty tyranny might produce. I 



IX WAR THE BRUTALISER 205 

remember listening to the orderly. He was one 
of the cleverest natural wits I have come across in 
the army. 

Says he: "Once there was a fisherman fishing 
on the west coast of Scotland, and he brought up an 
unclean thing. Who would have thought that that 
unclean thing would have survived to become the 
sergeant-major of this battalion?" 

Of course this R.S.M. was not the famous Jimmy 
nor the immortal Dan. Not he. 

Of "Jimmy" our colonel once made a remark 
which might serve as the epitaph of a famous 
R.S.M. : "He was the deadly foe of humbug; his 
touch remained long after he was gone." 

I was rather amused to read the C.O.'s marginal 
note to a minute which had been prepared on the 
subject of sympathy: "Sympathy does not con- 
sist in listening to yarns. Sympathy becomes prac- 
tical when an officer takes a hell of a lot of trouble 
to know his men and his work." 

Very true. But it is these "deadly foes of hum- 
bug" who are the sympathy-killers. 

Well, the regimental sergeant-major is the big 
bow-wow. All the lesser N. C.O.'s are the lesser 
fry, with the lesser barks and the lesser snarls. 

Even private soldiers, when they think they can 
try it on, will bark and growl at one another, and 
"give a steady one" in regimental style. Snarling 
provides the atmosphere of the ranks. 

"Ain't I a great hand at putting the wind up, 
eh?" said a sergeant to me in pride, fresh from a 
bout of cursing and swearing at his platoon. 



2o6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ix 

I did not show much sympathy with him. 
"You'd get better results if you encouraged them 
more," said I. 

"What's the matter with you, Steeven," he re- 
plied, "is you're too soft. You'd never get on in 
the army." 

I confessed I had been brought up always to try 
to put people at ease. If I lived to a hundred I 
should never be able to taunt and damn and terrify 
in the regimental fashion, and so get things done. 

Nevertheless, the men of our regiment, cursed 
and driven into every fatigue or fight, behaved as- 
tonishingly well from a military point of view. 
They did better than men in other regiments where 
the sergeants did not so constantly "put the wind 
up 'em." The method seemed always justified. 

That the driving-power of the army arose from 
courage and voluntary sacrifice was the first illu- 
sion to fall. The second was that of chivalry. It 
seems that in former wars one granted to the enemy 
a great deal of human dignity. Though he was 
a foe, he was a fellow-creature, and was saved by 
his Redeemer as much as we were. But the opin- 
ion cultivated in the army regarding the Germans 
was that they were a sort of vermin like plague-rats 
that had to be exterminated. Although the British 
soldier had a "sneaking" admiration for the Ger- 
man as a good fighter, this admiration was gener- 
ally eliminated through the inspiration of officers 
and N.C.O.'s. The regimental tone absolutely 
forbade admiration of anything in connection with 
Germans. "Killing Huns" was our cheerful task, 



IX WAR THE BRUTALISER 207 

as one of our leaders once told us. The idea of 
taking prisoners had become very unpopular 
among the men. A good soldier was one who 
would not take a prisoner. If called on to escort 
prisoners to the cage, it could always be justifiable 
to kill them on the way and say they tried to escape. 
Did not So-and-so get a D.C.M. for shooting pris- 
oners? "Thank God, this battalion's always been 
blessed with a CO. who didn't believe in taking 

prisoners," says a sergeant. Captain C , who 

at Festubert shot two German officer-prisoners with 
whom he had an altercation, was always a hero, 
and when one man told the story, ''That's the stufif 
to gi' 'em," said the delighted listeners. That 

this preyed on C 's mind, and that as a sort of 

expiation he lavished care and kindness on German 
prisoners ever after, till he was killed at Cambrai, 
was not so popular a story. 

It was curious, however, that in battle itself there 
was more squeamishness about brutality in actual- 
ity than there had been in conversation. The old 
hands, the men who had the regimental tone, were 
equal to their words, but the younger and newer 
ones hardly liked it. I remember a characteristic 
case in the first advance. A German machine-gun 
post had been holding up the British advance and 
inflicting murderous casualties. The machine was 
enveloped and rushed, and the Germans held up 
their hands and surrendered. An old-time ser- 
geant goes up to his officer, who, by the bye, was a 
poet, and wrote some very charming lyrics and had 
a taste in Art, and salutes: "Leave to shoot the 
prisoners, sir?" "What do you want to shoot them 



2o8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ix 

for?" says the poet. "To avenge my brother's 
death," says the sergeant. I suppose the poet tells 
him to carry on. He pinks the Germans one after 
one, and some of our fellows say, "Bravo!" and in 
others the blood runs cold. In the same battle the 
sergeant himself perishes, and a sort of poetic jus- 
tice seems to have overtaken him. But it is the 
stufif of which he was made that makes us terrible 
to the enemy. The enemy knows about it, gets to 
know infallibly, and having no great moral cause 
to help him, does not flame with noble anger, but 
is merely afraid and wishes the war were at an 
end. 

I remember the disgust of one of our American 
volunteers at this episode. For a few days it 
caused a reaction in him, and made him quite 
warm-hearted toward Germans. But when he had 
been in one or two more frays he also caught the 
regimental point of view, and was ready to "kill 
Huns ad libitum." 

There was a characteristic way of speaking to 
the Tommies: 

"The second bayonet man kills the wounded," 
says the bombing-instructor. "You cannot afford 
to be encumbered by wounded enemies lying about 
your feet. Don't be squeamish. The army pro- 
vides you with a good pair of boots; you know how 
to use them." 

". . . Don't go wandering down deep dug-outs 
in search of spoil or enemies, but if you think 
there's any Boche down below, just send them 
down a few Mills bombs to keep 'em quiet." 

". . . At this point the Germans come out of 



IX WAR THE BRUTALISER 209 

the machine-gun nest holding up their hands, and 
the man with the Lewis gun forgets to take his 
fingers off the trigger." 

No one said to the men, "By refusing to take pris- 
oners, by killing prisoners, ill-treating them, or 
killing wounded men, you make it only the worse 
for yourselves when it may be your lot to fall into 
the enemy's hands. Remember he holds as many 
British as we do Germans." The stories of our 
brutality inevitably got across to the Germans, and 
made it worse for our poor fellows on the other 
side. No one said, ''It is good to take prisoners; 
take as many as you possibly can. That tends to 
end the war. But by ferocious habits you are only 
making this war into a mutual torture and destruc- 
tion society for all men between eighteen and forty- 
five. Out of cruelty comes cruelty. Out of mercy 
comes mercy." 

The young ones dimly understood this in them- 
selves, but it did not obtain currency; the older 
army types, with standardised regimental point of 
view, kept all new recruits staunch. 

In enforcing and excusing brutality it was com- 
mon to recount the known atrocities the enemy had 
committed, the regimental stories of his tricky 
ways. And it was possible by enumerating his 
crimes to seem to justify any cruelty or barbarity 
on our part, and to let us assume that if we thought 
of him as devil, that was just what he was. But 
a fair mind knew that atrocities and barbarities 
and cruelties of all kinds had abounded on both 
sides, and that both enemies (ours and theirs) had 
behaved in ways unworthy of man. 



2IO A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS ix 

The mind is curiously ready to think evil. An 
incident in the course of the great advance will 
illustrate "thinking evil" and "being brutal." 

There w^ere a number of us in B the morn- 
ing after it had been captured. We were sitting 
by a fire in a farm-house. The sound of rifle-fire 
in the village street was noticed, and suddenly a 
man bursts in and says that a German has come out 
of one of the cellars and has been sniping civilians. 
That seemed to account for the rifle-fire. Three 
or four men snatched their rifles from the wall and 
rushed out at the door, calling out: 

"The dirty bastard, we'll teach him to snipe 
villagers!" 

The others in the house did not stir. But pres- 
ently the would-be executioners of Fritz came back 
and clanked their rifles down again. It was a 
"wash-out." The German was dead. A Taffy 
had shot him. "Did the German wound any of 
the French?" we asked. No. He wasn't sniping, 
but was lying on the floor of a cellar. The French 
had discovered him, and had run out to tell our 
fellows. A Taffy had come and peered down the 
cellar-stairs. There in the gloom lay the enemy 
soldier in his greyish-blue uniform, apparently 
sleeping. The Welshman fired a shot at him. 
Then the German sat up. He fired seven more 
shots, and then dragged the body upstairs and 
threw it on the dunghill in the yard, searched the 
pockets of the uniform, and went away. The in- 
cident was closed. 

I went up then with some others to look at the 
German soldier. There he was, on a dunghill in 



IX WAR THE BRUTALISER 211 

the squared yard of the farm-house. To my sur- 
prise he was still alive, not yet dead. He had ap- 
parently been wounded the day before, for his 
right arm was swathed in linen and had been in a 
sling. His face was pink and white, very white 
and livid pink, and his little waxy eyes stared at us 
without expression. His white breast heaved up 
and down. So we looked at him and pitied, and 
went away. And he lay on the dunghill and the 
rain washed down, and I suppose he died in a few 
hours. 

"Can he stand on his spindles?" asked the kind- 
est man at our Red Cross post. "No? Then let 
him lie where he is. The Taffies ought to have 
carried him in; he's not our case." 

Some weeks afterwards I heard the story re- 
told. It had grown like the proverbial rolling 
snowball. Thus it ran: The German had crept 
out of a cellar and killed and wounded half-a- 
dozen women and children before one of the Taffy 
snipers put a bullet through his neck and ended 
him. 

"And serve him right, the dirty dog. I hope he 
had a lingering death," said some one. 

When the true story was told, some one made 
an obscene remark. But that was the way until the 
soldiers got to Germany and saw the Germans for 
themselves. 



X 



BRINGING BACK THE BODY 
OF MR. B 

On the evening of the first day of the great battle 
a party was sent with Captain E to the line. 

There had been the first advance, the battle 
shadow had lifted off the villages in the rear, bath- 
ing them in the new atmosphere of peace; the 
curtain had risen to disclose the ruins of the vil- 
lages in front after the guns had spoken. For four 
months we had sat facing one another in trenches 
on the ridges, but now at the end of August our 
army had left its front line behind; it had crossed 
the smashed and devastated German line, upon 
which so methodically our artillery had played, 
and then the second German line, preceded by 
planes overhead and tanks on the ground; it had 
entered one after another the vast white stone vil- 
lages of Artois, tumbled in ruins from end to end, 
and it had sought a retiring and fleeing enemy, 
who seemed to intend to retreat for a great distance, 
though he remained capable, nevertheless, of hold- 
ing up for a time, when he desired, three times his 
strength. 

We had learned earlier in the day from men in 
dressing-stations that small posts of machine-gun- 
ners were holding up the advance, that Lieutenant 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 213 

B , a popular officer, who had been through 

the East African campaign before he came to us, 
was killed, and that several well-known sergeants 
had been brought down in the fighting. 

The whole brigade, the whole division, many 
divisions were in movement, some progressing 
here, others and parts of others held up there. 
The designed course of the battle was in process 
of being realised point by point, though in places 
and for a time the plan broke down. Contact be- 
tween the advancing units was generally kept up, 
though occasionally contact was lost — as when our 
brothers-in-arms in the brigade went forward un- 
supported on their left, and were surrounded and 
lost. "Intelligence" knew where every unit was 
and where it ought to be. The half-blasted woods, 
ruined villages, and indestructible hills and ridges 
did not hide the army from its eyes. Nevertheless, 
the task of marching over the broken ground and 
finding the point which our battalion had reached 
after the day's advance was no easy task. "I ex- 
pect it to be the devil of a job," some one was heard 
to say. 

We left at six o'clock, Captain E and a 

brother officer riding in front; a limber with some 
water for the battalion and some whiskey to be 
left at brigade headquarters went between; a ser- 
geant rode one of the limber horses, and five or 
six men marched behind. 

At the outset we were confronted with a grand 
jam of traffic, caused by the slow progress of a 
queue of tanks over an awkward ridge of the road. 
Groups of officers, including some in gay uniforms 



214 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS x 

with epaulettes of steel, including also clericals 
with their unwontedly white collars and their deli- 
cate hands, still yellow with the clay which they 
had been throwing on to corpses all the afternoon, 
stood on banks and looked down on the scene with 
evident relief and pleasure. The bare-kneed tank 
officers rushed hither and thither in their cotton 
knickers, and with irritation written on their sun- 
burnt faces. Troops of all kinds swarmed about 
the scene, and we stood posed as in a Graphic pic- 
ture. 

"Turn the limber about; we can't wait here 

longer," said Captain E , and the fat sergeant 

on horseback laboriously obeyed, cursing his officer 
the while for pretending to teach him his business. 
So we made a detour, all grumbling, the two of- 
ficers silently going ahead. 

It was evening. Twilight was descending on a 
broad moorland which was intersected with roads 
and old trenches. Dust on the road was more than 
ankle-deep, and we beat it up in clouds, so that it 
whitened us all and entered eyes and nose and 
mouth, and lay in a crust in the moustache; and 
the same dust hung in curtains over the moor; it 
was high in the heavens like a mist, there were 
columns of it in the atmosphere, and the sun set 
strangely and pallidly because of it. 

We passed the extraordinary ruins of a sugar 
factory, all tormented and twisted, still eighty feet 
high, but terribly dilapidated, as it were warped, 
the body of the place disembowelled and the ruined 
machinery of the interior exposed, mingled with 
congealed liquescence. And at sinister angle out 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 215 

of all this, at a great height, the undamaged shoul- 
der of a crane. "A madman's design," thought I. 
"There is an idea in it, that is clear, but a maniacal 
notion of misshapenness instead of symmetry has 
found expression." 

We passed the well-dug but battered British 
lines, which we had been long convinced as sol- 
diers no enemy could take, and then in No Man's 
Land we saw the spectral figures of giant tattered 
aerodromes, long coveted as complete possessions 
by both sides, used by us constantly for night bomb- 
ing-fliers until the German armies had flooded over 
all the country in the spring. Now we had them 
again. 

We began to be a little unsure of the way. Still 
there was with us Mountjoy, who had come down 
from the line some hours before, and though there 
had been a further advance, he could still guide 
us with some surety. Nevertheless, we began to 
ask questions of passers-by. At late twilight we 
came to cross-roads, where but lately death had 
claimed his own, and now there was a traffic of 
motor-lorries only to be compared to what is seen 
at a street artery of a large city. Every lorry was 
white with dust, the horses' hoofs were deep in 
dust, and the drivers' faces and backs covered with 
it. There was an unwonted absence of talk. 

Our road led across the German front line, 
which lay in indescribable confusion without a 
soldier, without even a sentry, but with the odour 
of yellow-cross gas and of corruption. The stars 
came peeping through the dusty sky; the great 
moon gained luminosity, whilst the eye, which had 



2i6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS x 

ranged far and wide over the battle-field, instinc- 
tively searching for dead, was narrowed in its scope 
to wayside border-lands. 

Wounded men, in twos, helping one another, 
straggled past us to the rear. Exhausted men sat 
silent and limp on banks at the side of the road. 
Submissive, eternally patient German prisoners 
passed us, carrying stretchers with wounded on 
their shoulders, one armed guard for each squad of 
bearers. There was a rare simplicity about them, 
and seeing them in sharp silhouette against the 
sky, they looked like the sculptured figures of some 
marble tomb. 

Darkness set in, but the moon above the battle- 
ruin illumined all and increased it in grandeur. 
Traffic grew less and less. Enemy bombing-ma- 
chines droned overhead, and their bombs glared 
crimson and resounded in explosion far away in 
the darkness. The great guns were silent, but the 
aeroplanes, being little opposed, came down to- 
ward us, and swept the roads with machine-gun 
fire. So as not to be seen, we halted till the firing 
ceased. 

We then entered a vast area of demolition, where 

the village of H had been razed to the ground, 

and, kicking through the dust, went down its main 
street, on which once many windows had looked, 
but now nought looked. It was as if God had 
visited it, and every man had fallen backward and 
broken his neck, and every house and home had 
fallen flat. No, not a wall stood, but hideous male- 
faction had boshed and bashed even that which 
was already useless. In contrast to all this, a small 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 217 

undamaged parlour-chair stood in a drift of dust 
at the cross-roads at the far end of the village — 
taken, who knows from where, and placed there 
in pity for the wounded. 

We had been three hours on the road. We stood 
some minutes at that memorable crossing, and ques- 
tioned various horsemen who arrived and went. 
There passed us a regular caravan of supply-tanks, 
much larger than the fighting size, but containing 
rations of petrol and water and supplies of ammu- 
nition. When we took the next road we found the 
''Brigade," and two of our men were detached for 
duty there. And we obtained a runner who had 
the name of being an infallible guide, and his duty 
it was to lead us to where the battalion lay. With 
him we followed a column of machine-gun trans- 
port, and there began the most empty period of 
our march, empty because we were tired, and were 
haunted by the idea that we were going wrong. 
What happened to the transport ahead of us it is 
impossible to say, but we were indeed going wrong, 
and when we at length halted, there were only a 
few posts between us and the Germans. The in- 
fallible guide had led us amiss, and we retraced our 
steps several slow kilometres. It was now nearing 
eleven, and the enemy's guns and ours opened fire, 
and the shells overhead screeched through the air 
in both directions. Various ammunition dumps 
were hit and burned up in red glares to the sky; 
twinkling Very lights shot up and wavered in 
miniature constellations, and silver snake-lights 
hung a few moments and went out. Away on our 
left we heard the deliberate repetitions of a Ger- 



2i8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS X 

man machine-gun. But we plodded on and cursed 
and grumbled: 

"The horses will be nearly dead before we get 
back. . . . What's the use of a hundred tins of 
water when the supply-tank can take four hundred. 

. . . Old man R must be working for another 

bar to his medal sending us up with water. ... I 
knew before we started out we'd get lost with that 
long devil taking us. And I've been twenty years 
in the army, and he thought he could teach me my 
business. . . . We're not on the right track. I'm 
damned well sure we're not on the track. . . ." 

But we were going right this time, and in half 
an hour came to a huge box-shaped standard of 
netted camouflage, two Red Cross waggons, stacks 
of petrol-tins, and a confusion of captured Ger- 
man arms. These marked the entrance to a vast 
hollow chamber in the earth, dug previously by the 
laborious Germans, and now used as our battalion 
headquarters. Twenty or thirty well-cut clay 
stairs led down to this great cavern, and on every 
step some one was stretched, asleep, while down 
below, where but lately German sabres had 
clanked, lay our colonel and other officers sleeping 
too. 

Captain E went down these many steps, 

and we with the limber continued our way by an 
exposed road to the point where one of the centre 
companies lay. The enemy shelled the road, and 
five minutes after we had started three of our men 
mechanically threw themselves flat in the road as 
a shell came right at us. But the shell did not ex- 
plode. Another exploded to our right, sending 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 219 

a shower of smoking metal over us, and almost 
stunning us with the concussion. So we hurriedly 
dumped the cans at the side of the road, and the 
horses galloped back to headquarters as fast as they 
could be urged. There we sat and drank water 
from gallon petrol-tins and watched the wounded 
arriving at the Red Cross waggons. The full 
moon poured its light and its splendid midnight 
silence over all. 

However, whilst we were waiting, an orderly 
came out to ask us to take a stretcher and bring 
down a dead officer lying where he had fallen. 

This was Lieutenant B . We were not very 

eager because we were tired, but a guide came out, 
and we found a stretcher and followed him — first 
along a ravine and then over an exposed ridge 
where trenches had been partly dug. We all sat 
down and rested in an empty trench, and it was 
just midnight. A wounded man limped piteously 
up to us and asked the way to the aid post, and it 
was an old squad chum. "Hullo," said he, the 

light of recognition in his eyes. It was C 

again, the boy who thought the South African War 
was fought in Egypt. He had got a ''Blighty one" 
from a fragment of shrapnel. We told him where 
to go, and then for our part went on, threading the 
empty trench till we came to that part held by our 
men. Here were several dead, and we took the 
coverings off their faces and looked at each to find 

out which was that of Lieutenant B . Last 

time I had seen the face it was pleasantly flushed 
with wine, and there was a glitter in the eyes; his 
pale yellow moustache veiled rather witty lips. 



220 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS x 

But now it was smeared with red dry blood, and 
the moustache was heavy in death. A fine tall 
fellow and a great weight dead. 

For a moment our attention was diverted to a 
souvenir lying in the dirt, a small anti-tank rifle 
with a one-inch bore and one wanted to put it on 
the stretcher with the dead man. But it was too 
heavy. So we shouldered the dead body of Lieu- 
tenant B and began our slow journey to the 

limber. We changed hands and positions at least 
a dozen times whilst carrying it, and as German 
shells burst near us there was danger of the 
stretcher capsizing, for one of us was very nervous 
and wished to fall flat to earth every time the men- 
acing buzz of a projectile assailed his ears. So 
the heavy, ill-balanced body swayed and lurched, 
registering the nervous tension and fatigue of those 
who bore it. We perspired and gasped. At 
length, at the entrance of the ravine, we halted and 
sat down. Since last we passed, a gas-shell had 
exploded, and as we sat with open mouths, panting, 
our throats burned with "yellow-cross." Perhaps 
we ought to have put on our gas-masks, but with 
them on we could not have found sure footing 
among the many holes, and no one wished to fall 
whilst holding the dead body. 

At length, however, to the limber. And the 
dead body was roughly transferred from the 
stretcher to the wet bottom of the cart. The men 
had thought to sit themselves in that cart, but the 
dead had dispossessed them. There was no longer 
any talk of the tiring of the horses. A second 
small cart, the rear half of the limber and the size 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 221 

of a barrow, was yoked behind the first, and into 
it we cramped and crowded our tired limbs. The 
officers reappeared and rode ahead, we followed. 
And now we must retrace most of our steps and 
recross once more the battle-fields and trenches over 
which we had come whilst night was young. Hap- 
pily we knew a good deal more of the way than we 
had done on coming. But we were not troubled; 
we were resting. It was a marvellous summer 
night. There was time to appreciate that now — 
the moon remained over us in extraordinary 
splendour. 

We developed a fair pace, and it did not seem 
to matter into what pits the limber fell or how it 
lurched, we righted ourselves and went on. The 
body in front of our eyes lay head lower than the 
feet, and the feet were upturned before us. We 
looked at the nails and the earth on the soles of the 
boots, and the thought flickered in the brain, ''He 
trod that earth in, he will never tread on it again; 
instead, earth will press on him." The body lay 
on its back and moved ever so little, and yet seemed 
to be trying to make itself more comfortable now 
and then. And the horseman in front and we in 
the carts behind plunged among the gaunt silvery 
ruins of the village of H . 

"How pathetic it is!" I thought, ''that in peace- 
time this magical night would express itself in 
such a warm comfort of the soul, in the liquid 
music of the nightingale in the wood, in the chirp- 
ing of crickets in the grass, in happy, peaceful ham- 
lets. How dififerently the serene stars would have 
spoken to us then!" And I thought of nights in 



222 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS X 

the past, and of nights in the radiant pages of 
books. 

One house wall standing by itself amid the ruins 
took my eyes. It was a large tattered fragment 
of wall, and where an upper storey had adjoined, 
and once, perchance, a woman's bedroom had been, 
was a six-foot round hole, splintered and rough- 
ened, as it were, by the knuckles of the ogre who 
had struck it. All about us were ruins, and our 
passage was as through Nineveh or Tyre in a per- 
fect Eastern night, with the barren desert all 
around; but the ruins were so new that one saw, 
as it were, the malice of the destroyer written over 
them. One smelt the comfort of homes that had 
been lately blasted away. What negation! No, 
not the hand of God! Here was expressed no 
wrath, but wantonness, ugliness, suicide, mania. 
To think how all would have been placidly slum- 
bering at that hour, but instead, heaps and wilder- 
nesses of stones! 

The fat sergeant who had cursed so violently 
came and sat on the side of the rear cart with his 
legs dangling down, and he looked at the corpse. 

"For two two's I'd take those boots off and 
change with him," said he, considering intently the 
quality of the boots of the dead officer. 

"Why, that's what I've been thinking this last 
half-hour myself," said the other sergeant who ac- 
companied us, "only it's a bit risky." 

"Why should he be buried in such good boots? 
An old pair of boots is just as good to be buried 
in. It's a damned waste, and a waste to the coun- 
try, too!" 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 223 

*'Yes, it's a waste ; a pair of boots like that would 
cost five pounds, not less." 

"Somehow you can't help feeling sorry for him," 
said the second sergeant, who evidently had some 
qualms. 

"Oh, it's come to him as it's got to come to all. 
Just the same as any other man. I'm not sorry for 
him," said the other. 

So we passed on out of the village into the moor 
beyond, and saw in a vale all the long line of green 
and yellow tanks carefully disguised, and waiting 
for dawn and the resumed attack. We entered 
once more the old German lines, with all their 
signs of war and desolation. 

The man called Mountjoy, sitting crouched in 
a corner of the limber, began telling us his story, 
how he was a South American, a volunteer from 
Buenos Ayres, but consumptive, and repeatedly 
refused by doctors; how he had gone on his knees 
to doctors and officers to get himself passed as fit, 
and at last, when standards were lowered, he man- 
aged, by telling the story of his enthusiasm, to get 
taken in the army. But once in France, how bit- 
terly he repented! How he knew what a fool he 
had been! And his shadowy eyes burned with re- 
gret in his large, pale face. He described in 
broken English what a beautiful life there was at 
home; told us his sorrows about his mother, whom 
he had grieved, and how he had wished to send his 
photograph to her but the Censor always refused 
it. He it was who had come down from the line 
earlier in the day and was doing double duty be- 
cause he had known the way. 



224 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS x 

"I ought to have four or five days clear after 
this," he lisped hopefully. 

"Well, you must look after yourself, for nobody 
else will look after you in the army," said the ser- 
geant morosely. 

"Yes, that's true." 

There was a silence. 

"I don't suppose he ever travelled in that pos- 
ture before," said the sergeant reflectively, looking 
at the dead body. It now lay diagonally across 
the cart. And he smiled at the contrast, at the 
fine style of the living officer and this poverty- 
stricken way in which the same ofiicer, now dead, 
was travelling. 

"... A heavy fellow . . ." 

And once more we were in a village where the 
hand of the maniac had been at work, and I thought 
of the ruins in the hearts of men. Oh war, the 
brutaliser! I thought of a contention of a very 
drunken soldier: "The war has reduced men be- 
low the level of the beasts that perish. To be un- 
concerned at death is lower than the animal. 
War, I tell you, knocks all the religion out of a 
man." 

I had held an opposite point of view. 

Captain E told us as we lay in the cart 

that we must have some food before turning in. 
Then he galloped ahead, and we followed labori- 
ously and creakingly through the stone-heaps of 

B to the flushing, flooding water-point, where 

we watered the patient and mute beasts who had 
carried us. I shall always feel kinder toward 



X THE BODY OF MR. B 225 

horses in memory of the many dead beasts we saw 
'by the way that night, and for the fact that we were 
too tired not to ride. 

So we brought the body of Mr. B to the 

lines at B . Worthy M'K , a barber of 

Perth, greeted us as we came in, and though it was 
not his task, he had taken charge of the kitchen 
for awhile, and had made tea both for the officers 

and for us. I put an arm round M'K as we 

walked to the kitchen. It was four in the morn- 
ing, and the long, strange night ended in gaiety and 
talking. 

The body of our poor lieutenant lay outside. 
Next day it was carried further still, and buried 
where lay many others of our regiment in the grow- 
ing graveyard of Berles au Bois. Curiously 

enough. Captain E was thrown from his horse 

and badly injured; the other officer got gassed; 
Mountjoy, who pined for South America, died of 
pneumonia; the sergeant who was so callous to- 
ward the dead officer died of influenza, and the 
driver and the other sergeant were suffocated in a 
cellar — all before armistice day. 



XI 



AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 

"We were fighting in a rose-garden which was 

strewn with men who had been dead for some days. 

The pink roses and the green corpses were a strange 

combination," said L , the young poet who 

wrote charming lyrics and had such a taste in art. 

He was fresh to the work and looked on the dead 

for the first time. The memory was distasteful, 

and yet it inevitably recurred to his mind. He 

strove to banish it as an elegant person in civil life 

would naturally banish from the mind something 

evil and repulsive, such as, for instance, say, some 

beggar woman's face that his eyes by chance had 

seen. I met the same L a month later; we 

were discussing impressions of the war, and he 

confessed that he felt no interest in the dead as 

such ; they were just so many old cases of what had 

once been men. He had seen so many dead that 

already the instinctive horror had gone. 

"They say Madame Tussaud offered a reward 

to any one who would sleep a night in the Chamber 

of Horrors, but I think I could do it," said Dusty 

one night by a camp-fire, "I've slept in dug-outs 

with dead men and been too tired to throw them 

out, and I've wakened to feel rats' breath on my 

cheeks. I think no wax-works could have terrors 

for me." 

226 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 227 

The greatest number of the soldiers had become 
indifferent to the horror of death, even if more 
intensely alive than before to the horror of dying 
themselves. In many an extraordinary callous- 
ness toward dead bodies was bred. They could 
kick a dead body, rifle the pockets of the dead, strip 
off clothing, make jokes about facial expressions, 
see waggon-wheels go over corpses, and never be 
haunted by a further thought of it. Only if the 
dead were British, or if it were known to you, the 
dead body of some one in the same regiment, there 
seemed to be a sadness and a coldness, a sort of 
presentiment that you yourself would perish be- 
fore the end and lie thus in trench or battle-field, 
cold and inanimate, soaked with rain, uncared for, 
lost to home and dear ones. 

But the German dead had no interest. They 
lay about everywhere unburied, for our own dead 
had precedence with the burying-parties. All 
along the devastated village streets the Germans 
lay dead as they had been shot down in action of 
flight, the look of running in fear was still on the 
brown faces, and the open mouth and white teeth 
seemed to betoken calls to their comrades as they 
ran. In the debris of the houses to which men 
rushed for souvenirs the dead lay too, with gentle 
empty faces, and ever so shabby, shoddy tunics, and 
their little round caps beside the subdued and 
thoughtless heads. Germans lay in the dusty gut- 
ters like old parcels, and men would turn them 
over to see the face that was biting the dust. 
When we were in the long ravine of Noreuil and 
Vaux-Vraucourt, the ridges, and indeed the hoi- 



228 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xi 

lows of the ravine itself for miles round, were 
strewn with dead. The air was heavy with putre- 
faction, and on either hand extended the battle- 
field, covered with wreckage and dug out with 
huge shell-holes. Discarded rifles, equipments, 
ration-tins, clothes, mouldy loaves of German 
bread, tins of corned-beef, drums of ammunition 
lay everywhere. Unexploded German bombs lay 
about in scores, and likewise packages of explosives 
for mining. The roads were scattered with unex- 
ploded cartridges, with hundreds of thousands of 
them, and shells of many calibres lay about in ex- 
traordinary promiscuity, and amidst all these the 
miserable dead lay where they fell, British and 
German, friend and foe. The long trenches that 
traversed the green fields were inhabited by corpses, 
and it was a pity to think of them lying long un- 
buried, and of the souvenir-hunters handling them 
day by day and leaving them ever more bare. 

I lived at that time for a fortnight in the midst 
of this wreckage of war. The dug-out which I 
had appropriated had been used by a German be- 
fore me, and there was a half-finished, sodden let- 
ter in it to a German mother, and there was a box 
of revolver ammunition. It was eight feet in 
length and a little deeper than a grave, and it was 
dug out of bright yellow clay at the side of a sunken 
road. Parties of men went to and fro all the day 
along the way, and the way was one of running 
mud. The roof was made of planks thrown across, 
two German blankets, and a waterproof cape de- 
tached from a set of equipment lying on the moor- 
land above. There were five steps in the mud of 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 229 

the bank leading up to the dug-out, and these were 
made of German ammunition boxes full of ma- 
chine-gun ammunition. There was a shelf w^hich 
was an iron sleeper from the German light rail- 
way, a fireplace made of a provision-tin; for table 
a German stool, and for seat two petrol-tins filled 
with dirt. Outside there were hundreds of strands 
of loose telegraph-wire which were wandering 
from their shattered posts, and on one of these, 
pegged down by two "buckshee" bayonets, a sol- 
dier's washing could be hung out to dry. Every 
morning there was enough water in the sagging 
waterproof cape on the roof to wash in, and some- 
times for a regimental shave. The sense of being 
surrounded on all sides by the dead never left one, 
and as I sat and looked out on the scene I saw dis- 
played on a hillside a hundred yards distant the 
red and grey silhouettes of the ruins of Noreuil 
looking like some village in Palestine. 

From this point I used the privilege of liberty 
which I had, and made expeditions to Queant and 
the Drocourt switch and to Bourlon Wood and 
Bourlon village, pulsating with the life of the Brit- 
ish and French-Canadians who had just taken it, 
to Pronville and Moeuvres, and to the trenches 
known as P and Q and R where our battalion lay. 
The fascination of going from dead to dead and 
looking at each, and of going to every derelict 
tank, abandoned gun, and shattered aeroplane was 
so great that inevitably one went on further and 
further from home, seeking and looking with a 
strange intensity in the heart. I saw a great num- 
ber of the dead, those blue bundles and green 



230 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xi 

bundles strewn far and wide over the autumn fields. 
The story of each man's death was plainly shown 
in the circumstances in which he lay. The brave 
machine-gunners, with resolute look in shoulders 
and face, lay scarcely relaxed beside their oiled 
machines, which if you understood you could still 
use, and beside piles of littered brass, the empty 
cartridge-cases of hundreds of rounds which they 
had fired away before being bayonetted at their 
posts. Never to be forgotten was the sight of the 
dead defenders of Ecoust lying there with all their 
gear about them. On the other hand, facing those 
machine-gunners, one saw how our men, rushing 
forward in extended formation, each man a good 
distance from his neighbour, had fallen, one here, 
another there, one directly he had started forward 
to the attack, and then others, one, two, three, four, 
five, all in a sort of sequence, here, here, here, here, 
here; one poor wretch had got far but had got 
tangled in the wire, had pulled and pulled and at 
last been shot to rags; another had got near enough 
to strike the foe and been shot with a revolver. 
Down at the bottom of deep trenches many dead 
men lay, flat in the mud, sprawling along the duck- 
boards or in the act of creeping cautiously out of 
holes in the side. In other parts of the field one 
saw the balance of battle and the Germans evi- 
dently attacking, not extended, but in groups, and 
now in groups together dead. One saw Germans 
taking cover and British taking cover in shell-holes 
inadequately deep, and now the men stiff as they 
crouched. I remember especially two of our fel- 
lows in a shell-hole; fear was in their faces, they 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 231 

were crouching unnaturally, and one had evidently 
been saying to the other, "Keep your head down!" 
Now in both men's heads was a dent, the sort of 
dent that appears in the side of a rubber ball when 
not fully expanded by air. There were those who 
had thought their cover inadequate and had run 
for something better and been caught by a shell 
on the way — hideous butcheries of men ; and there 
were men whose pink bodies lay stripped to the 
waist and some one had been endeavouring to save 
them and had abandoned them in death — men with 
all their kit about them, men without kit, men with 
their great-coats on and men without great-coats. 
The nearer one approached to the battle-lines 
the less touched the dead appeared. But those 
near our encampment at Noreuil all lay with the 
whites of their pockets turned out and their tunics 
and shirts undone by the souvenir-hunters — which 
brings me once more to the general relationship 
of the average living soldier to the dead. I re- 
marked that though those in the battle-line were 
very swift in the pursuit of the so-called souvenir, 
in other words, in pursuit of the loot, it was those 
behind, such as the artillerymen and labour corps, 
who were the authentic human crows. I used to 
walk a mile or so every evening to the five derelict 
tanks which lay on the sky-line on the way toward 
Queant and I got to know the dead on the way, 
and I watched them daily grow more and more 
naked as successive waves of souvenir-hunters went 
over them. There was a handsome German some 
six feet three, very well clothed, and the first time 
I saw him he was as he had fallen. Then his 



232 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xi 

boots went — he had a good pair of boots. Then his 
tunic had been taken ofif. A few days later he was 
lying in his pants with many parts of the dead 
body exposed. 

I came home late one evening and fell in with 
a man from one of the sixty-pounder batteries at 
Queant. He was grubbily but methodically ex- 
amining the corpses of the German machine-gun- 
ners and hoping to pick up a revolver. I watched 
him examine one without success and he gave the 
dead body a kick. "The dirty barsted," said he, 
as if he were accusing the corpse, "somebody's bin 
'ere before me." 

The revolver or automatic pistol was the best 
prize of the souvenir-hunter. Money was sought, 
and watches and rings. There is something grue- 
some in the act of taking a marriage ring or even 
an ordinary ring from a dead man's hand and then 
wearing it or giving it to be worn in England. 
But very few German dead were left with rings 
and the Roman Catholics were despoiled of their 
crosses. The legitimate tokens to take were the 
brightly coloured numerals from the shoulders of 
tunic or great-coat, the officers' helmets (not the 
saucepans but the Alexander-the-Greats), field- 
glasses, pocket-books, etc. But the hope of each 
seeker was the pistol. 

I was wandering through a shattered and de- 
serted military camp one morning and a questing 
major burst upon me. I saluted, but he brushed 
formality aside. "Hullo, hullo," says he, "is it 
true that your regiment has a special privilege to 
look for automatic pistols?" 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 233 

I looked demure in the presence of such exalted 
rank and the major regarded me searchingly. 

*'I'm out to give fifty francs for every automatic 
pistol I can pick up," said he. And that was a 
plain hint to me that if I could sell he would buy. 

He was major in a regiment impolitely referred 
to by our haughty Spartans as a ''grabby mob." 

There must have been many men who were not 
as lacking in imagination and impressionableness 
as the majority who ranged o'er the battle-field 
seeking for treasures. But I did not myself meet 
these. Even the best saw nothing in taking away 
any property which might remain with the dead. 
Such property was no good to corpses. It was 
curious what a great number of letters, both Brit- 
ish and German, lay on the battle-field. These had 
been taken out of the pockets and pocket-books of 
the dead and since they were no use had been 
thrown to the winds — literally to the winds, for 
when the wind rose they blew about like dead 
leaves. There were photographs, too, prints of 
wife or sweetheart, of mother, or perchance of 
baby born whilst father was at the war — the price- 
less, worthless possessions of those whose bodies 
lay on the altar. 

It never seemed to me worth while to collect 
lurid mementoes such as helmets or bombs, but I 
often designed to make a representative collection 
of the letters both German and British which were 
lying about one's feet. I read many of them; 
though there was something almost intolerably 
tragic in the hopes and fears and boasts and pre- 
sentiments of those who had written to men who 



234 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS XI 

were in truth destined to be killed. Many, many 
of the letters said some one was sorry that letters 
had not been written, but promised to write longer 
and oftener. Many letters were full of admoni- 
tions to be careful, not to take risks. Others prom- 
ised "leave soon," ''home for Christmas," "the war 
over." Some told stories of the air raids on Lon- 
don; others were full of domestic details and never 
mentioned the war. Some obviously endeavoured 
to keep cheery because it had been said the men 
needed cheerful letters, but others refused to be 
reconciled to the separation which the soldier's go- 
ing to the Front had meant. Perhaps they might 
have sounded trite and ordinary, but as being writ- 
ten to those who were about to die, it seemed as if 
Fate read them also and smiled in malice. 

I had a suspicion that many of the dead who 
lay unburied for so long were not reported dead 
— but simply as "missing." So in one case where 
several letters lay strewn round a corpse whose 
pockets were inside out, I took one crumpled mis- 
sive and sent it to the writer of it with a carefully 
written note about the young lad's fate. In an- 
swer I received a letter from the father asking for 
definite news of his son if I had any, as he had not 
been heard of for a long while. Whatever reply 
I sent, would I please send it to his business ad- 
dress, not to his home, as the mother was so anxious. 
By that time, however, the boy's body with seven 
others had been put into one hastily dug grave, the 
names but not the units nor the numbers had been 
printed on the one cross. I then informed the fa- 
ther of his son's death and of the exact locality of 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 235 

the grave. In due course of time the father re- 
plied that I must be mistaken, for his son had been 
reported as wounded and missing. I wrote no 
more, but I formed the opinion, which was after- 
wards completely confirmed, that "missing" very 
often meant dead and unburied, and that an un- 
buried British soldier if he belonged to a unit 
which had passed on was almost inevitably reported 
"missing." Burying was such a tedious job when 
it had to be done as a fatigue by a party not really 
responsible for burying, that it was done in the 
most rough-and-ready way. 

War robs the individual soldier of reverence, of 
care except for himself, of tenderness, of the hush 
of awe which should silence and restrain. War 
and the army have their own atmosphere in which 
some one else being dead, as much as killing some 
one else, succeeds in being trivial and even upon 
occasion jocular. Two sergeants going out for a 
stroll came upon a German corpse with the steel 
helmet right down over the eyes. One of them 
lifted up the helmet in order to see the face prop- 
erly. A saturnine gloom was on the lips and this 
had been intensified by the masking of the eyes. 
When the sergeant lifted the helmet it pulled up 
the flesh with it, and the upper lip rose from over 
the ivory teeth with a ghastly grin. "Take that 
smile off your face," said the sergeant, and let the 
helmet drop back over the eyes again. And they 
laughed. In these and in so many, imagination 
and sensitiveness were swallowed up by war. But 
another soldier, new to war's horrors, came upon 
a Royal Scot lying dead on a ridge. Beside the 



236 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xi 

corpse was a packet of note-paper and envelopes 
which some souvenir-hunter searching his kit had 
forgotten to take. The soldier was just in need of 
note-paper and envelopes to write home, and he 
took this packet away from that dead man. 

All that night and for many days he seemed to 
hear the tiny, tiny voice of the corpse saying or 
rather whining in his ear, "You've stolen my note- 
paper and envelopes," grudging them and demand- 
ing them back, — as if the dead were misers. 

But the soldier did not return the stationery to 
the place where he found it, and after a while his 
mind seemed to harden and take on a sort of crust. 
He had been haunted by the faces of the dead, and 
then these faces ceased to haunt him, and he had 
obtained the soldier's peace of mind. 

The greatest and perhaps the only consoling 
truth which can be learned from the expression 
of the dead is that a corpse has very little to do with 
a living body The dead body is sacred, but it is 
not the person who died. That person has mysteri- 
ously disappeared. The look of the dead body, 
its shrunken individuality as compared with that of 
a live man, must have partly caused the great vogue 
of spiritualism — ^that look might be taken as part 
of the evidence of immortality. That was the 
chief positive impression which I obtained. For 
the rest, the whole matter was infinitely pathetic. 
There were one or two of us who felt there would 
always, ever after, be a cast of sadness in us because 
of what we had seen. I felt how inhuman we 
had been to one another. How could we come at 



XI AS TOUCHING THE DEAD 237 

last to Our Father with all this brothers' blood 
upon our hands? 

"Europe, Europe!" I thought; "what a picture 
might be painted of Europe, the tragic woman, 
with bare breasts, anguished eyes, but no children. 
— Oh, Europe, where are thy children?" 



XII 

PADRES AND OFFICERS 

Our battalion possessed one Church of England 
priest who was serving in the ranks, Sergeant 
L , who afterwards became the quartermaster- 
sergeant of the company to which I belonged. 
He only came to France in August, and when I 
saw him first, whilst I did not know he was a priest 
or an educated man, I took him merely to be a 
quiet sergeant with rather less personality than his 
exuberant confreres. He had a passion for the 
game of chess, and used to ask each new person 
he met whether he played. When he discovered 
that I knew the moves — I was perhaps the only 
man in our ranks who did know them — he felt ir- 
resistibly drawn to inventing the means of playing. 
There is no greater social enemy of man than the 
chess fiend, and I watched him with apprehension 
mark out a chequer work of sixty-four black and 
white squares on the three-legged stool in my dug- 
out at N . But the game of chess was the 

means of my knowing much about his character 
and history. 

We had an original set of pieces. The white 
rooks were white buttons from the pull-strings of 
stick bombs ; the knights were part of the detonators 

of hand-grenades; the perfect bishops came out of 

238 



XII PADRES AND OFFICERS 239 

the internal structure of German egg bombs; the 
queens were the unscrewed nosecaps of shells. It 
seemed natural to refer to the white queen as the 
"mobled queen" in the player's phrase. The 
kings were anti-tank cartridges; the black pawns 
were the black cordite tablets used as charges for 
heavy guns, and the white pawns were the bright 
yellow circles of material sometimes discoverable 
in unexploded star-shells. Sometimes revolver 
ammunition or parts of German respirators did 
duty, and the pieces in general were a motley crew. 
We took a great interest in evolving a set of men 
for both sides, and changed the personnel so often 
it was somewhat of a mental feat to keep in mind 
who was who upon the board. 

So we played chess and he told me his story. 
He had been a volunteer at the time of the Boer 
War, and when that war was over had remained 
in the army for some time. Being of a religious 
turn of mind he was always a man apart. He left 
the army eventually to study, but he had by that 
time had six years of army life and had attained 
sergeant's rank. He went to college and had rapid 
success in study, but he told me he found the atmos- 
phere of the theological college very much less 
pleasant than that of the army. In the army there 
was much coarseness and brutality of thought and 
conversation, but men were more or less ashamed 
of it. But at college the men prided themselves 
on their nasty stories and a sort of coarse and 
cynical point of view, which nevertheless they did 
not quite attain, and they were ashamed of their 
respectability. He was more lonely among the 



240 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xii 

students than he had been in the army. How- 
ever, he progressed very v^ell in theology, took a 
good degree, and was ordained. He obtained a 
living in Surrey and had a full life there. But 
when the war with Germany commenced he felt 
the call of the army again, and at once gave up 
his clerical duties and volunteered for the Front. 
Then, as often happened in the army to enthusi- 
asts of his kind, he was kept in the training bat- 
talion at home and not sent to France until the ini- 
tial enthusiasm had cooled. Though he had been 
practically the whole of the war in khaki it was 
only August 191 8 that saw him in France. 

I soon learned that he was very much pained 
at the brutality of the conversation, which was so 
much worse at the Front than at home, or than it 
had been in the Boer War, and he found difficulty 
in accommodating his mind to the flow of brutal 
talk which assailed his ears day and night. He 
was also much horrified at the way men spent their 
Paris leave. Leave was being granted regularly 
at that time for men to go to Paris to enjoy them- 
selves, and such leave was often little more than a 
trip to the houses of ill-fame. For an illiterate 
soldier there was little other interest in Paris ex- 
cept low pleasure. 

L was known generally by the nickname of 

"Creeping Barrage," for he habitually looked out 
of the top of his eyeballs through his lowered eye- 
brows, and had a sort of spectral glide forward 
when he walked toward you. It was really a 
clerical gaze, and his face had set in it and would 
not change. 



XII PADRES AND OFFICERS 241 

His adventures with us were interesting in them- 
selves. Being a man of education he was not likely 
to be popular, and being also, as every one knew, 
a clergyman in civil life, most thought he must be 
a bit of a fool. With the private soldiers, as he 
was stern though just, he did not have much 
trouble, but his colleagues of the same rank were 
more difficult, and set out to make a fool of him. 
The officers with whom he came in contact gener- 
ally assumed that because he was a clergyman he 
must be incompetent, and gave him a great deal of 
blame when anything went wrong. I think he 
gradually won them over. When he first ap- 
peared, several thought he was a Baptist minister. 
When they found out he was Church of England, 
it made such a difference. He was, however, in 
himself a fine man in most ways; very athletic, an 
indefatigable marcher, ready to carry any amount 
of stuff, his own and other people's, on his back. 
He was not afraid of anything, he neither drank 
nor smoked, and did not use bad language, and 
he lived according to his religious principles. 

Those who had known him in England, said 
that he knelt every night by his barrack-room bed 
in prayer before he lay down to sleep. 

Though he was laughed at for many things, he 
was, in secret and sometimes also openly, greatly 
admired because he lived what he had preached. 

'T will say this about the Creeping Barrage," 
said one: "He lives the life." 

"The only Christians we ever had in this bat- 
talion," said an old soldier, "were Q.M.Sgt. L 

and M . As for L , he lives the life of a 



242 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xii 

Christian, which is what cannot be said of many 

who are paid to live it. And M , when he was 

ordered to place his own brother under arrest, re- 
fused to do so, preferring rather to lose his stripes" 
— another battalion story. 

I could not help feeling that L was a great 

spiritual gain, and that his life, though he never 
preached or "saved souls," or betrayed by any act 
that he was a priest, nevertheless made a deep 
impression on men's minds. 

I do not think that he regarded himself as in 
any way a priest whilst he was in khaki. He was, 
I believe, somewhat of a sacramentarian and 
''High Church." His Christian character was 
natural, it was not a priestly matter. But to the 
men character was everything in religion. I re- 
member my astonishment one day when a man 
next whom I slept in a tent told me he was not a 
Christian — he drank and smoked and used bad 
language, he was sorry to say; he'd often wanted 
to get clear of these bad habits, but he confessed 
they were too much for him, so he was obliged to 
remain "not a Christian." 

"But a man can drink and swear and still remain 
a Christian," said I. 

"Oh no," he insisted; "it's not going to church 
that makes the Christian — it's living well." 

And that was the general army point of view. 
Christianity was character and it was conduct. 

Now our padres did not exhibit character. 
They preached, they spoke to the men, they were 
saluted and respected. But whilst the men lived 
a hard life, and each, as it were, carried a cross, 



XII PADRES AND OFFICERS 243 

the padres, being officers, lived at ease; and 
whereas the men had poor food, they ate and drank 
in the company of the officers. I could not help 
feeling how badly handicapped the padres were. 

We had had one chaplain who had done ex- 
cellent work: he had comforted the wounded and 
the dying, been often under fire and in danger, and 
yet never turned a hair; a man who cared little for 
his rank as such and was concerned exclusively 
with God's service. He was by no means the fight- 
ing parson or the sporting padre that the men are 
supposed to like, but his name was never mentioned 
without affection and admiration. This was Cap- 
tain M . There were others also who won 

the men's esteem, but my impression was that in 
the war chaplain's work had failed of its object. 

They could not preach the Sermon on the Mount 
because they thought loving your enemies con- 
trary to the spirit of the war. They could not in- 
veigh against lust because the medical officer was 
of opinion that Nature's needs must be satisfied. 
They could not attack bad language because it was 
accepted as manly. They could not attack drunk- 
enness because it was the men's relaxation, and a 
good drinker was considered a good fighter. 
What was there for a poor padre to say to the 
men? 

But life at the Front exposed men to many more 
temptations than did the old life at home. The 
men succumbed to them. Sexual intercourse was 
regarded as a physical necessity for the men. Be- 
sides being the medical point of view, it became 
the official army point of view as well, and we 



244 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xii 

were often told in lectures that it was natural, and 
all we had to do was to use the safeguards and 
preventatives which were at our disposal to save 
us from disease. The padre could not go and 
reason with the men who upon occasion were to 
be seen in queues outside the houses with red blinds. 
Hundreds of thousands of men who had led com- 
paratively pure lives until they saw France learned 
and were even encouraged to go with impure 
women. As many learned to drink and to get 
drunk. I know purity has little to do with religion, 
and that the first thing to obtain is a loving and 
humble heart, but the British working-man can 
only apprehend religion from the point of view of 
moral behaviour, and in his opinion "religion is a 
wash-out." 

I met whilst I was in France some ten or twelve 
chaplains. They all had pleasant personalities, 
and it was a relief to converse with them after the 
rough-and-ready wit of the men. I saw them 
from a different angle from that in which they were 
seen by the officers. What struck me most about 
them was the extraordinary way they seemed to 
make their minds fit to the official demands made 
upon opinion. They always rapidly absorbed the 
official point of view about the war, and often the 
officers' point of view as well. 

They based their opinions on the leaders in the 
Times, and they thought the Morning Post a little 
bit wild and the Daily News bolshevik. They ate 
Germans for breakfast, tea, and supper, and were 
often more bloodthirsty than the men. One or 
two of them drank whiskey with gusto, and spoke 



XII PADRES AND OFFICERS 245 

the gaudy language of the army. "Graham," said 
one, "if there's one thing more than another that 
is important in this war, it is that the whiskey supply 
should not get low." One whom I knew well was 
an extraordinary believer in discipline, quite a 
Prussian in his way, and liked men to stand to at- 
tention when speaking to him, and say "Sir" and 
the rest. He told me he had a physical loathing 
for the Hun, and was ready to see the whole race, 
man, woman and child, exterminated. I pro- 
tested that God made the German, that though he 
was our foe he was human and was entitled in our 
thoughts to human dignity. Thereupon ensued a 
conversation made bitter on his side, and I had to 
withdraw as gently as I could. 

The men, whilst they liked those who talked to 
them of home, were cold toward them in the mat- 
ter of religion. For the chaplains did not live the 
Christian life in any pictorial or dramatic way. 
The men no doubt thought that as servants of God 
they should be angels of mercy and light. They 
expected them to stand out in extraordinary con- 
trast to the ugliness of war. The man like L 

in his silent service and duty did far more to give 
the battalion a sense for religion. 

That brings me to a conclusion, and it is that 
in any future great organisation of our manhood 
I think more could be done if it were decided to 
abolish the military rank of chaplains. They are 
not captains. And such titles as Colonel the 
Reverend or Brigadier-General the Reverend are 
almost ridiculous. I know there would be a ter- 
rible ordeal to go through, but it seems the spir- 



246 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xil 

itual needs of the army would be better served if 
candidates for chaplaincy were trained in the 
ranks, and did duty with their brothers, only being 
excused and given special privilege when they 
were needed in the special function of priests. 
Then they might be brought out to take a service 
or to bury the dead, and might be made stretcher- 
bearers during a fight. It would perhaps be a 
test of professing Christianity too terrible to ask 
nowadays. And yet I am convinced that the priest 
in that position would find himself nearer to the 
heart and soul of the soldier than he can be as an 
officer. 



XIII 

THE GREAT ADVANCE 

The final great advance was caused by the defeat 
of the Germans in mid-July on their Soissons- 
Chateau-Thierry flank, consequent upon the abor- 
tive bid for Paris. In that victory of Marshal 
Foch, the French general not only won a battle but 
a war, and he demonstrated to the mind of the Ger- 
man Stafif that Teutonic resources would not 
stretch to Paris, and that in fact there were not 
enough German soldiers to hold the greatly ex- 
tended battle-lines which then obtained. It must 
suddenly and for the first time, and yet finally, have 
become indisputably clear that the vast German 
dream of victory could not be realised. The op- 
tion constantly before the German eyes had been 
World-Power or Downfall. Now only downfall 
began to be left to them. 

Not only was the hope of victory lost, but sud- 
denly the danger of complete defeat confronted 
the German. His armies were perilously insecure. 
His skill in the rapid transfer of troops from one 
sector to another became of no avail; for when he 
had brought the Franco-American advance to a 
standstill on the River Vesle, his line immediately 
gave way in the Montdidier sector. He there- 
fore made a large decision — to evacuate his newly- 

247 



248 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

gotten gains and return to the Hindenburg system 
of defences. Such a retreat as ensued was very 
trying to the morale, and it gave birth to the Spar- 
tacus movement in the army — the revolt at last of 
the military slaves. However, from a military 
point of view the decision to go was creditable to 
the German mind, and the skill with which the 
operation was carried out won a good deal of 
praise, though neither the decision nor the skill 
with which it was realised could rob the whole 
matter of its intense significance in change of for- 
tune. For with it the Allies entered upon their 
victorious role. 

The German retreat began in the southern sec- 
tors of the line and spread northward. The 
enemy's guns were moved back and also the main 
bodies of the armies. Once the Germans were 
well under way with their plans for evacuation lit- 
tle was done to harass them. Each sector seemed 
to wait until the enemy had to all intents gone, and 
then our troops made an advance. A telling at- 
tack by our division could no doubt have been 
made weeks earlier, but they were held back till the 
main body of the enemy had got away. Three 
months' more or less continuous fighting ensued, 
and all these three months we fought delaying 
parties and isolated machine-gun posts, or we 
stormed fortified villages or strongly-held sections 
of dominant trench or half-constructed pill-boxes. 
As far as our section of the advance was concerned 
we were never near obtaining a general engage- 
ment with the enemy or a large capitulation of his 
forces. Our progress was a taking over, after 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 249 

rather bitter encounters with enemy rear-guards, 
what the Germans had evacuated. 

The proceedings opened in late August when a 
test raid was carried out under the charge of Mr. 

B , who perished afterwards in the early days 

of the advance. It was a remarkably noiseless 
raid, and was said to have been perfect in its way. 
Volunteers had been asked for, and many fellows 
were found eager for the afifair, though none could 
say how much or how little danger there was in it. 
My bold Fitz of Virginia volunteered — saw him- 
self winning a V.C. or in any case distinction of 
some kind. The party was twenty-two in all. 
They were to go out armed mainly with clubs, like 
savages. These clubs were made specially for 
them by our pioneers. They were made of the 
iron part of Mills hand-grenades clamped to en- 
trenching-tool handles. One sharp blow on the 
head from one of these and your enemy needed 
no more. The raiders carried no rifles. There 
was no artillery or machine gunnery helping them 
from behind. They wore no helmets or service 
caps, but tight bags of stockingette over their hair; 
their faces were blackened so as not to catch the 
light of the stars, their hands also.^ All were prac- 
tised to stealthy silent movement, and all thirsted 
for German blood in a particular sort of way, and 
felt themselves curiously at home in this adventur- 
ous tribe which had been formed. 

Shortly after midnight they crossed No Man's 
Land together and started on their eerie quest, all 

1 Also for the purpose of readily recognising an enemy. If you see 
a white man you know at once he's not on your side. 



250 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiil 

together, all silent, all nursing short clubs and 
ready to beat down an enemy at the slightest alert 
— over the dark, shell-torn ground, under the pale 
stars, silence and stealth. . . . 

If they had been detected by the enemy ahead 
a German machine-gun might have mown all down 
in one revolution. So in the tense minds of the 
raiders ranged constantly the possibility of mis- 
chance. But they made no mistakes, they carried 
the raid out perfectly, and reached with great 
trepidation the German wire. But if occasion- 
ally a man got caught on that and stirred the rusty 
barbs no sniper brought him down from the van- 
tage ground beyond. For the Germans whom we 
had believed to be there all the summer were gone. 
They had stolen away to the rear leaving behind 
them only isolated sentries and runners. 

The whole length of the shell-stricken gulleys 
seemed empty; the dug-outs were all dark. It was 
impossible to be sure in the night whether there 
were not enemies hidden away in the depths of 
the dug-outs, and our black men with their clubs 
dare not explore such places. But as they had 
been charged to bring prisoners in they went on. 

They crept silently over the back of the German 
front line and went on till at last they discovered an 
enemy post. There was a sentry and his relief 
waiting silently, but seeing and suspecting nothing. 
Six men flew at them and pounded their heads with 
the clubs and down went one Fritz all of a heap. 
One was killed, the other bruised and over- 
whelmed. They stripped the former of "souven- 
irs," each of the new men being eager to get a token 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 251 

to take home by and by; the other German they 
dragged along with them: he must suffice as pris- 
oner and be interrogated for intelligence. Poor 
fellow, he was too near dead to go straight, and he 
whimpered as they kept prodding him on with 
their clubs. They got him entangled on the wire, 
moreover, and had difficulty in pulling him off. 
They brought him to Headquarters, but he seemed 
too exhausted to speak and they carried him to the 
medical officer who made some acid remarks, for 
Fritz was dead. 

However it was considered a highly successful 
raid; there were no casualties on our side, and 

Mr. B , who by God's will was not destined to 

live another month, was very much praised. I 
was told this type of raid was introduced by the 
Canadians who had the instinct and the idea of it 
from the North American Indians. 

The secret was then thoroughly out — that the 
Germans had gone and were going back every- 
where. Very soon all the transport accompani- 
ment of fighting on a large scale began to throng 
the roads, and the decision to attack the enemy 
had matured. Had the main body of the enemy's 
troops confronted us it is unlikely that we should 
have been allowed to advance. But the situation 
was guaranteed against accident, and the first day's 
progress was more in the nature of a picnic than a 
battle. Still the enemy knew also that we had be- 
gun to move forward as he retired. He also had 
his "intelligence," and had devised means for our 
delay at critical points in the country. It was said 
that his rear-guards were composed entirely of vol- 



252 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

unteers or in any case of picked men. They cer- 
tainly comported themselves very well and saved 
innumerable lives to Germany. It seems, however, 
difficult to believe that they had volunteered. 
There was so much indiscipline and discontent in 
the German Army that one could hardly have ex- 
pected that many would have been ready to ofifer 
themselves for such heroic service. 

These rear-guards were met with the utmost 
ferocity by our troops who made short work of 
them whenever they got near them with the bay- 
onet. But on the other hand the soldiers of these 
rear-guards, skilfully posted as they were, behaved 
in a very gallant manner and caused a great deal 
of slaughter and delay before they perished or sur- 
rendered. Perhaps with more military skill our 
armies could have accounted for them more speed- 
ily and with less suffering. The exploits of the 
autumn of 1918, whilst they redound to the hero- 
ism of our soldiers, did not seem to show great 
military genius at work behind us. We had a 
good cause and our morale was good, and we had 
large numbers and many guns, but did not trust to 
brain. The organisation of the transport was ob- 
viously weak and the enemy was never pressed. 
On the German side there was a bad cause, a weak- 
ening morale, not large numbers, and compara- 
tively few guns, but a good organisation of trans- 
port and plenty of brain work. The whole autumn 
campaign was Brain versus Cause and the Cause 
won. No matter what blunders our leaders made 
the common soldier always felt the cause was good. 
But the German did not believe in his cause, was 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 253 

not ready to suffer for it any more and lapsed into 
indiscipline. There was a steady decline in disci- 
pline throughout September and October. Had 
the Germans been able to resist with as much indi- 
vidual tenacity on the ist of November as on the 
ist of September there had been no armistice. 

The methods of attack employed by our boys 
were quite straightforward; we were first held up 
by the machine-gunners in the formidable Banks 
Reserve. The Germans ought to have been sur- 
prised by rapid night assault or gassed or en- 
veloped or raided by tanks, but it was more or less 
left to our brave fellows to rush in broad davlight 
a fully-prepared enemy. The tanks were evidently 
the machine-gunners' worst enemy. Not that they 
feared a solitary tank or an isolated one, for by the 
concentrated fire of several machine-guns on one 
tank the latter could always be put out of action. 
But a whole series of tanks moving forward in a 
crocodile queue was the worst menace the machine- 
gunners knew. But the distribution and supply of 
tanks was not nearly adequate for a true economy 
of lives. There were not enough, or they got lost, 
or couldn't be got up in time. There was, there- 
fore, no rapid success for us at those prepared po- 
sitions. The enemy held on two days and thus en- 
abled his main army to get beyond the canals (Du 
Nord and St. Quentin) and to organise further de- 
laying action there. There were heavy losses suf- 
fered by the attackers, especially by the Bill 
Browns, whose discipline, courage, and fame com- 
mitted them then, as ever, to doing the impossible 
in human heroism and endurance. I lost a whole 



254 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

series of comrades and friends wounded or killed. 

C , who had filled up a blank file next to me at 

Little Sparta, was killed; S , recruited from the 

S.E. Railway, a jolly, happy, middle-aged man, 
who always hailed me as Steve and had a cheery 

word, was killed. H , the American boy who 

used to dance all night at New York, was wounded. 
Six sergeants with whom I was more or less ac- 
quainted were killed, and several other old soldiers 
and new recruits. The division went out of ac- 
tion to obtain reinforcement and reorganise. The 
Bill Browns could not make up their numbers and 
were therefore partly repleted from the survivors 
of the battle of Hazebrouck road, the heroic 4th 
Brigade. 

Of those who came through the fight unhurt a 

word might be said of B , the American actor 

from St. Louis, who played the part of Hamlet. 
He came up against the military machine in France 
and was continually in the guard-room for in- 
subordination or the like. It began with the sub- 
ject of his wife's death in America. A dour ser- 
geant said to him one day on parade, "I suppose 
you know your wife's dead." And in that way he 
learned the sad news. He took offence at this 
piece of brutality and got the sergeant into trouble. 
Then the sergeant became acting sergeant-major, 
and B could do nothing right, and was pun- 
ished, punished, punished — never out of punish- 
ment. But he did well whenever the battalion 
went into action and distinguished himself at Banks 
Reserve. He was extremely quick-witted and cer- 
tainly brave. It was his tongue and his lack of 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 255 

patience that got him into trouble. But he knew 
German, and obtained intelligence in the line, and 
was very serviceable. 

However, the very fact of his knowing German 
and talking it volubly caused him to be eyed with 
suspicion by the illiterate old soldiers. 

Fitz and I were talking together afterwards, 
and a knot of others came near us and began dis- 
cussing B . 

^^All he is, is a dirty spy. What he wants is the 
firing-party, and put him up against a wall." 

Fitz jumped up as if shot. "What's that you 
say? He's no spy. Damn it, who said he was a 
spy?" 

And he was ready to fight. But the canny old 
soldier who said it looked sour and was silent. 

No, B was a fine fellow. A bit too fond of 

talking, but an interesting boy all the same, and I 
was sorry for him. 

We rested in the old reserve lines near R , 

now become strangely calm since all our guns had 
gone ahead. A week later our progress was re- 
sumed, and we marched back to Banks Reserve, 
through St. Leger, north of ficoust and Noreuil, 
to within sight of Bourlon Wood, and the approxi- 
mation of two great highways to Cambrai. It was 
an easy advance over a conquered wilderness. 
Here the calamity of war showed its worst. The 
villages were flat or pounded to heaps of brick- 
dust and mud; conical rubbish heaps marked the 
sites of churches; by garden flowers growing wild 
amid debris you realised that homes had once been 
beautiful there. The land lay uncultivated for 



256 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

leagues, and had degenerated to moorland. And 
it was wilder than any moor, pitted by shells and 
gnarled with rusty wire. The atmosphere of 
France seemed taken away, and a new atmosphere, 
as of some vast waste continent, had been supplied. 
Thus possibly France looked in the time of Caesar's 
wars or before. But the neat, tended, civilised 
land of to-day had disappeared. There was some- 
thing strangely depressing about this part of our 
advance. Perhaps it was the odour of so many 
unburied dead. The Germans lay tumbled all 
along the way, some biting the dust with their sod- 
den faces; others lying on their backs and showing 
gleaming teeth to heaven. Our own British dead 
also lay around, and could not be buried for lack 
of labour. And possibly more horses than men 
lay dead and decayed, and were eaten by the rats, 
and shrank in rain and sun and could not get bur- 
ied. Noreuil, Lagnicourt, Moeuvres were all in 
that state, as were also Queant and Pronville, and 
many other war ruins into which our boys adven- 
tured. It seems surprising now what good health 
every one enjoyed despite the general decay. 

Meanwhile the Germans retired, and we were in 
light engagements near Moeuvres and the Canal 
du Nord, and held the line in alternation with our 
brother regiments. 

We all thought there would be a great battle 
for Cambrai, that we should make a vast attack, 
something resembling the large German offensive 
of the spring and summer. We were harassed by 
the German defence, and felt we must at all costs 
break through the system — heap confusion after 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 257 

confusion on our enemies — or else a winter stagna- 
tion would set in. An opinion began to be current 
that we should chase the enemy all the autumn and 
all the winter too. 

We took the Canal du Nord, and it was observed 
that the enemy had no intention of holding Cam- 
brai, and we took the Canal de St. Quentin. In 
this latter action "Gurt," the New York butler, 
met his death. As I have said, he was an honest 
and industrious and simple Christian, never using 
bad language and always ready to help a friend. 
He did not arrive at the front till September, yet 
with so little time to go before the armistice he per- 
ished. His platoon was moving in single file over 

dangerous country. One of his comrades, D , 

had fallen, and Gurt going back to try and ban- 
dage him and stanch his wound, found his com- 
rade (one of the same old squad) was past all help, 
and therefore returned. On his way back a 
sniper's bullet sped through his brain. So he went 
past us with one clear, noble action. I always felt 
a soft spot in my heart for Gurt. When I got to 
France at Easter, I found written on the inside of 
the chin-strap of my steel helmet, "With the best 
of wishes for your safe return," signed by him. 
When he died I felt somehow that "coming after 
me he had been preferred before me." He was 
the right sort. We could do with more "Gurts" 
in this world. 

Whilst we were in the canal some visited the 
grey ruins of Moeuvres. I went up to Bourlon 
Wood and saw the wonderful village with its long 
red chateau like a palace, and the enigmatical 



258 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

church showing exposed its inwards of lath and 
plaster and the decayed vitals of its altar. Terrific 
effects had been wrought by the artillery; whole 
frameworks of roofs seemed to have been removed 
as by one blast and deposited in the streets — such 
streets, one mass of red-brick debris and grey splin- 
ters of wood and iron. 

The battalion was accommodated in and about 
the Canal du Nord as a place of rest, though but 
lately it had been the line of battle. It was now 
entirely in our hands, and was a mass of military 
debris. Our neighbours among those red-brick 
canal walls were the Highland Light Infantry, a 
party of whom had but lately at Moeuvres held 
this ground so heroically, attracting universal com- 
ment and laudation. It was rather touching to see 
this canal, which had never held water, made into 
a series of barracks divided by the demolished 
bridges and locks. A series of grand iron bridges 
had once spanned it and each had subsided, crum- 
pled and torn, into the canal bed. In the canal 
walls were German dug-outs and destroyed ma- 
chine-gun nests. Over the "parapet" were many 
brick-kilns, where the German industrial company 
which had been building this canal previous to the 
outbreak of war had been baking their bricks. 

One of the Americans got a "Blighty one" at 
this time. This was a policeman from Philadel- 
phia, sometimes called Bigsey and sometimes Mrs. 

Wiggs. He, Fitz, and H had come over on 

the boat to England together, and sworn to remain 
inseparables in the war. But Mrs. Wiggs got wor- 
ried by the tales of horror, and volunteered to take 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 259 

a signalling course, so postponing his going to the 
front. By this means he escaped the Easter drafts. 

He only joined us in the reserve lines at R . 

But he did not stay long. A new man was knock- 
ing in a tent-peg with an unexploded German 
bomb. It went off and wounded three. Mrs. 
Wiggs got a fragment in his hip, but it was enough ; 
it served, and Mrs. Wiggs was soon back in Lon- 
don again at the reserve battalion. But it was not 
a time of many casualties, and the number of pris- 
oners coming in suggested the cheaper gains that 
we were making through the falling-off of enemy 
discipline. German prisoners kept streaming 
down along the great highway, and these were ac- 
commodated in the reservoirs of the canal a thou- 
sand at a time. We stood high above the reservoir 
near our lines, and looked down upon a thousand 
Germans all waiting — ^as if for a train to take them 
out of it all. 

On Sunday there was a church-parade for our 
fellows and service in the canal itself. 

During this period Bulgaria surrendered, and 
the overwhelming victories over the Turks were 
obtained. Our men had little reliable news, but 
rumour was rife. Numerous talks with German 
prisoners disclosed a more dispirited state of the 
enemy. We heard much of the chances of revo- 
lution in Germany; of Turkey and Austria, both 
having ''thrown in their mits" as the current jar- 
gon phrased it. And it is true we felt we were 
w^inning. Still, the soldiers were far from re- 
alising or believing in the near chance of obtaining 



26o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

complete victory. It was left to the next stage in 
our advance to kindle a genuine flame of hope in 
which to live, instead of the glimmer of the old 
will-o'-the-wisps of the war. 

When on October 7 wc marched forward once 
more one of the most romantic moments of the war 
was at hand. 

Havrincourt, near which we spent the night of 
the 7th, was complete desolation; Ribecourt was 
no better, but Marcoing was a trifle less smashed, 
and gave the impression of having been a rather 
pretty town in peace-time. We spent the night 
of the 8th on the ridge between Marcoing and 
Masnieres. It was very cold, with a hoar frost 
on the grass, and the men, expecting to go into ac- 
tion on the morrow, slept as best they could in old 
machine-gun emplacements and ditches. On the 
Qth we heard that Germany had accepted Presi- 
dent Wilson's fourteen points, and on this day, too, 
we began to see new types of landscapes. We had 
passed through the zone of destruction, and were 
emerging into the comparatively unharmed re- 
gions which had remained in German hands since 
191 4, where the fields were ploughed and harvests 
had been taken, where the villages had red roofs, 
and the spires were on the churches. 

The last village to show signs of being badly bat- 
tered was Crevecoeur — Heartbreak Village — and 
there also were many German and British dead, 
the latter being chiefly New Zealand men. All 
the way to Seranvillers there had been hard fight- 
ing, and the German gunners lay piled on their 
machines. On October 10, however, we swung 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 261 

clear of the old desolation altogether, coming to 
Esturmel. We learned that Cambrai had fallen 
and that the whole campaign was going well, and 
the enemy on his knees seeking for peace. The 
battalion did not need to go into action, for the 
tentative objective marked out for them had been 
abandoned without a shot. It was billed for the 
next day instead. The hour of setting ofif for the 
line was fixed for one in the morning. But, housed 
in a jolly village, the men made a most joyous 
night of it with feasting, singing, and merriment. 
Lights shone in all windows, and from end to end 
of the village was music and hilarity. Indeed, 
out in the middle of the main street one fellow was 
sitting at a piano, and a crowd was round him sing- 
ing catches. Near by the pipers were playing. 
In another billet there was a whistling chorus. 
Those who wished to rest reclined on mattresses 
on spring beds. Supper in the cottage with a sec- 
tion of a platoon round a regular family table, the 
fire burning merrily in the stove, the wall-clock 
ticking and striking, the faces of French villagers 
looking out from faded portraits on the walls, made 
a strange impression, but a good one. Next day 
the battalion went into action from St. Hilaire. 

On Friday, October 11, at one in the morning, 
the battalion marched forth out of Esturmel, and 
with the usual impedimenta of "fighting order" on 
their shoulders, swung through the prosperous 
coal-mining and weaving villages and townlets of 
Carnieres, Boussieres, St. Hilaire. At St. Hilaire 
they loaded rifles and fixed bayonets at the centre 



262 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiil 

of the town — ^at the much-shelled square. The 
village of St. Vaast in front of us on the high-road 
was taken by the Taffies, who, however, were un- 
able to proceed, owing to the division on the right 
being held up. 

The field of our advance lay north-eastward 
from St. Hilaire, and was part of an encircling 
manoeuvre for the taking of Solesmes. The dis- 
trict is somewhat heavily populated, with the vil- 
lages approximating to one another, and there are 
some half-dozen lines and branch-lines of railway 
radiating from Solesmes. It was therefore a 
neighbourhood which served the German cap- 
itally for delaying purposes. He was able to make 
a stubborn resistance, whilst on his far northern 
flank he evacuated Ostend, Zeebrugge, Bruges, and 
Lille, Roubaix, Turcoing, and the rest. The re- 
tirement marked time ten days, therefore, in the 
centre, whilst it quick-marched in the north. 

Our fellows soon came into touch with hostile 
power. Two companies were held up on the Fri- 
day by machine-guns posted on the first strand of 
the Solesmes railway. At midnight the other two 
companies relieved them. The "fighting" com- 
pany, to which most of the Americans belonged, 
sent out a patrol to reconnoitre, and I heard after- 
wards from H , who had already recovered 

from his wound and hastened back, how, about a 
mile along the line, seven of them got cut ofif and 
nearly fell into enemy hands. But they rushed the 
machine-gun post that constituted their chief dan- 
ger, and got back with the gun and two prison- 
ers. 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 263 

The enemy, however, slackening as usual to our 
impetus, was slowly withdrawing, and with that 
knowledge the two companies were able to cross 
the railway and ''dig in" on the other side. They 
held the line all night on the Saturday, and on Sun- 
day the 13th were relieved and returned to St. 
Hilaire. 

The great adventure of this stage, however, was 
the entry into the village of St. Python, in which 
three platoons participated. Toward midnight 
on Saturday a railway bridgehead was taken with- 
out the enemy knowing it. Another patrol sur- 
prised and captured a machine-gun post in silence. 
Various sentries were disposed of silently, and an 
entry into the village was effected. 

It was found next morning that the sleeping and 
silent settlement which they had wandered about 
by night was full of Germans and of French civil- 
ians, and our men therefore marched into a melee 
of mingled hostility and hospitality. 

A cheery old Highlander, called "Fergie" by 
us all, one of my original squad, told me how em- 
barrassed he was by the women trying to throw 
their arms round his neck, whilst he, with fixed 
bayonet, crept forward, watching every corner of 
a wall for the shadow of an enemy. The villagers 
were entranced by our appearance on the scene. 
It must be said these were the first civilians we had 
seen for two months. The enemy had been evacu- 
ating the French population with his guns and his 
ammunition, and now, because we had come fur- 
ther than he had expected and had surprised him, 
we came upon civilians en masse. Whether these. 



264 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

during their four years' stay with the enemy, had 
been ill-treated or not, it would be difficult to say, 
but they were well-fed and cheerful, and at the 
same time extremely joyful in greeting us. A 
captain and a sergeant-major entered one of the 
houses and received a very warm greeting, and sat 
down to have coffee, whilst the women asked ques- 
tion after question about the advance. Wherever 
our men went indoors and encountered the French, 
they were regaled with coffee and eggs and soup 
and what not. But the clearing of the village pro- 
ceeded all day under heavy machine-gun fire, and 
much sniping by the enemy. The German com- 
manded nearly all the streets, with his machine- 
guns posted in the houses on the other side of the 
river. 

The position was such, and remained such, until 
our relief by the Bill Browns. We held the half 
of the village up to the River Selle. The enemy 
held the half which lies beyond. All bridges were 
broken, and we were not of sufficient strength to 
attempt to bridge across the river under fire. 

Then Ensign K with his platoon endeav- 
oured to reconnoitre the river-bank, with a view to 
finding some means of crossing, A corporal who 
went out with him volunteered to go along the 
bank to examine the timber lying adjacent to a 
demolished bridge, and see what could be done 
with it. He at once came into heavy machine-gun 
fire, but threw himself into the river, and thus 
saved himself from being killed. The fire ceased, 
but whenever he put his head up above water it 
commenced again. Nevertheless, he continued his 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 265 

progress, and achieved his object and returned. 
His coolness and daring were much admired, and 
he became the hero of the St. Python incident. 
His equipment was shot through in several places, 
and his escaping all wounds partook of the mar- 
vellous. 

The rest of the platoon, sheltering behind a 
house, had a very hot time. The machine-gun 
bullets threshed the road and the brickworks, bul- 
lets burst right through the house walls, and there 
were not a few casualties. Of five who attempted 
to get away to a safer cover only one succeeded 
without wounds. And as regards the rest, the very 
slightest chance given was taken by the enemy. 
Thus Will, the fine fellow from the Far West, one 
of my best friends, was peering round the wall in 
such a way that it would have been said no enemy 
could see him. But a sniper's bullet passed, never- 
theless, through his left tunic pocket, through his 
cigarette-case and books, and through his heart, 
and he settled backward with a smile on his lips, 
but dead. And the survivors, who knew him well, 
went mad with rage for a moment. Fitz of Vir- 
ginia, now a corporal, even wanted to lead the rest 
of the party out to do or die in a big rush on the 
machines. But the cannier spirits reflected that 
he was a little bit mad in thinking of such a thing. 

A curious feature of the fighting was the way 
civilians were walking about the streets, some of 
them wounded and bleeding, but all comparatively 
unconcerned. One or two of our men were shot 
by German soldiers disguised as civilians; one of 
them, denounced by the rest, was shot in turn by 



266 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

one of our sergeants, for which action the sergeant 
was much commended by every one. 

As time wore on the Germans could be seen 
quietly and methodically withdrawing from the 
other half of the village, and moving over to their 
next standing-ground at Solesmes and on the ridges 
beyond. When the Bill Browns took over from 
us, they had little difficulty in making good the rest 
of the village. The French civilians were there- 
fore joined once more to France. Many belonged 
to Boussieres, St. Hilaire, and other villages in the 
rear, and had been marched off when the Germans 
had evacuated these places. They were now re- 
turned under escort to their homes. 

Meanwhile the acting quartermaster and eight 
men were gassed in one and the same cellar in St. 
Hilaire, and all perished. Amongst the men were 
two bandsmen, an old soldier who played bass and 
a very gentle-natured young one who played the 
tenor-horn. No one put his gas-mask on, and the 
captain himself, whilst mortally gassed, was going 
about giving orders, not knowing that every move- 
ment he made was stirring the fatal poison into his 
vitals. He was removed to the hospital at Car- 
nieres and died shortly after daybreak, purple 
through asphyxiation, and foaming at the lips. 
The gas-shells of the time seem to have been more 
deadly than usual, though the close atmosphere of 
the cellar accounts for the terrible fatality in this 
case. The gas was "green-cross," chiefly phosgene, 
but was thought to be a blend hitherto unused by 
the enemy. An impressive funeral service took 
place at Carnieres in the twilight of a murky Sat- 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 267 

urday evening, when ten of our Spartans were bur- 
ied side by side in one grave, and the pipes played, 
and the services were read in succession by Angli- 
can, Presbyterian, and Roman Catholic chaplains. 
The acting quartermaster had been one of our more 
amusing officers till he died, but the tragic circum- 
stances of his end changed the opinion of all the 
men about him. All became sorry for him, and 
for most he became a hero. 

So the advance progressed, punctuated by the 
death of several brave and gallant fellows. The 
battalion rested at St. Hilaire, which the enemy 
still shelled fairly steadily, though without causing 
us loss. The lesson of the late tragedy of gas- 
shells in cellars was fresh in most minds, and the 
men were ordered to sleep with their respirators 
tied at "the alert." For the rest the rumour of 
peace was in the air; Germany had accepted the 
fourteen points of President Wilson, and had 
agreed to evacuate France and Belgium by mili- 
tary arrangement. Not that due weight was at- 
tached to such news. Incredible rumours of the 
kind and of other kinds were always in the air, 
and were indulgently received. Germany had ac- 
cepted the peace conditions, yes, and also Hinden- 
burg was dead; the Kaiser had committed suicide; 
sixteen thousand German soldiers had broken the 
neutrality of Holland, and the Dutch had declared 
war. The Americans had taken Metz. With all 
that was unlikely, the prospect of peace did not ob- 
tain much credence. 

The billets of St. Hilaire won every one's ap- 



268 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

probation. The homes of the exiled villagers were 
unreservedly in the hands of the soldiers, as were 
also the strange hoards of potatoes, carrots, and 
turnips, which the Germans had accumulated in 
every cellar. The cellars had been dug out mar- 
vellously, and contained considerable supplies, 
which the enemy had been unable to remove in 
time. Thus every evening there were unusually 
good suppers simmering on the French stoves, 
vegetable soups, strengthened by bully, and occa- 
sionally by the presence of a rabbit which had been 
found. On Thursday, October 17, however, the 
battalion marched back to Boussieres, which was 
crowded with other brother battalions. An atmos- 
phere of festivity and happiness reigned there also, 
and though rooms were more crowded, the comfort 
was as unusual as at the former village. And 
whilst the men sang and gossipped of the war, the 
chiefs were busy with the details of the next ad- 
vance. On October 18 a practice moonlight attack 
was carried out, and on the 19th the battalion 
marched forward to its new battle positions for the 
next stage of the advance. 

The 19th was a Saturday, and that evening, in 
a large house on the St. Vaast road, a battalion din- 
ner was given, and all the officers who were going 
into action after midnight sat down together and 

dined. The colonel presided; Captain R 

acted as host, and his cook prepared the dinner. 
It was a characteristic occasion, when each, even 
in conviviality, knew that a few hours hence he or 
his friend might be dead. At midnight the battalion 
marched out in the pouring rain to the cross-roads 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 269 

at Arbre de la Femme, and in what was otherwise 
an almost bloodless advance the youngest of the 
subalterns met his death. 

All that was encountered were rather lonely Ger- 
man posts and slight garrisons in little villages. 
Prisoners were sent down in the course of the night. 
The advance was generally notable because of the 
flaming thermite shells used to indicate the bound- 
aries of the barrage, and also to give the signal 
when every four minutes the fire-curtain lifted and 
swept clear of a hundred yards. 

It would probably have been more interesting 
for the units concerned if each could have carried 
its attack a little further than was planned; if each 
attack, instead of being touch and go, could have 
become a sort of hunting-party. But there were 
a great many troops available, and when one divi- 
sion had done its little bit, it could stand bv and 
watch others successfully carry the good work fur- 
ther after them. We rested at St. Vaast. In these 
davs the Germans still sought peace, and President 
Wilson had pointed out the futility of such seeking 
accompanied bv brutal deeds on land and sea. 
The inhuman practice of deporting the civilian 
populations of the villages in the battle area was 
denounced. The humbled enemy, therefore, 
changed his policy, and relinquished his grasp 
upon civilians. The latest villages taken had 
villagers in the cellars. Liberated peasants and 
peasants' wives began to appear on the roads, 
tramping from the German lines. The plight, 
however, of these soberly clad folk of France was 



270 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

often a fearful one — between two fires — left in ig- 
norance as to whether they were approaching 

friend or foe. Captain R records the sight he 

witnessed on the sunken road near Haussy. A 
queue of poor people in black struggled slowly 
along the road with heavy bundles; there were 
children hanging to the women's skirts; there were 
old men hobbling on sticks, patiently and slowly 
returning to the homes whence they had lately been 
driven. Suddenly, with a long wail through the 
air, came a German shell, and burst on the road, 
and following it another and another, menacing the 
little band. Some were hit by fragments of shell, 
but they did not flee, only the children clung to 
their mothers, and the old men tried to hobble a 
little faster. Captain R remarked the mar- 
vellous patience of the French women, but he was 
greatly incensed with the Germans, and like many 
another at that critical time he felt less than ever 
disposed to spare the Germans the bitter dregs of 
utter humiliation and defeat. 

Carrying on our offensive, the 2nd Division 
was now in the line, and numbers of blue-clad 
Germans streamed back to us along the highway. 
The cages at St. Hilaire filled several times with 
Germans, strange, unwashed, ill-shaven, dirty men 
in shoddy uniforms, with broken boots and 
weather-beaten hats — all sorts and sizes of men, 
Prussians, Westphalians, Bavarians, Alsatians, dif- 
ferent types of faces, all relieved, all "out of the 
war," and yet all depressed. With the failure of 
Germany's fortunes in the field the last vestige of 
dignity seemed to have departed from the faces of 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 271 

the prisoners; they were creatures that once were 
men; human beings who had sufTered three suc- 
cessive kinds of degradation — they had been indus- 
trialised, then militarised, and finally captured by 
an enemy. Nevertheless, a considerable amount 
of curiosity reigned among us regarding them, and 
we lined the road in numbers to look at them come 
in, and crowded about the barbed-wire cages to 
stare at them. After nightfall friendly Tommies 
brought cigarettes and handed them through the 
wire, and talked with those who could speak any 
English. Such conversations were mostly friendly, 
but I was highly amused to listen one evening while 
a little fellow in the Royal Scots recapitulated in 
a loud voice all the atrocities the Germans had 
committed, and especially those with regard to 
British prisoners. The captured German kept 
mildly protesting that it was not true, but the Scot 
outvoiced him firmly and terribly. 

Whilst we were billeted at St. Vaast there was 
considerable increase in the civilian population. 
From the villages liberated by the 2nd and 
3rd Divisions the evacues of St. Vaast and St. 
Hilaire came slowly, with their bundles, over the 
shell-pitted roads, and found their old homes 
amongst us. They were a very quiet and humble 
folk, and the children much astonished us by lift- 
ing their hats to the officers, even upon occasion to 
the sergeants — the Prussians had taught them to. 
The returned villagers took over the living-rooms, 
and the soldiers went to the barns and the cellars, 
or they waited for our next remove to take over 
their property then. Certainly those first to re- 



272 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiil 

turn to their property were luckiest. The Ger- 
mans during their occupation had moved chairs, 
beds, tables, clocks, from house to house to suit the 
requirements of rank and comfort. Each officer 
had made up his apartment, according to his taste, 
from the furniture and belongings of neighbouring 
houses. The consequence was that the returned 
villagers had to go from house to house with bar- 
rows to make up their belongings. Thus, whilst 
having tea, two women would come in at the door 
of the billet and look around whilst we saluted 
them and addressed gallantries. They would se- 
lect one chair perhaps, or throw loving eyes upon 
the much-scratched piano. Then our fellows 
would give them a hand to shift the furniture. 
Whether in every case these returned villagers had 
an unbiassed vision of what was their own and 
what belonged to less fortunate neighbours I can- 
not say, but I imagine some lively disputes would 
eventually arise as to whom exactly belonged cer- 
tain arm-chairs which had appeared in an un- 
wonted way in houses that used to be more bare, 
and whose was the covetable wall-clock that now 
hung on the wall? 

The joy of returning home must have been not 
unmixed with grief. Although it was the custom 
in our battalions always to clean up billets and 
leave them in a brighter and more habitable con- 
dition than that in which we found them, yet some 
interiors were in indescribable confusion. 

The new villagers, however, set to work to clear 
and to clean, and to render barracks and billets into 
homes once more. They lived on potatoes and 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 273 

carrots, augmented with army rations; their fires 
burned, their wash-tubs outside their houses 
steamed. For themselves they had a strange, un- 
wonted look to us, these first civilians. They were 
decidedly different from the French we had left 
behind in the old Arras and Albert regions; in 
their faces were reflected the German; they were 
more humbled and depressed than the French 
refugees who had lived with the French. And 
they did not speak the curious talkee-talkee pigeon 
English which our old friends in the background 
used to converse with us. When we said to them 
^'Commang ally plank?" and ''Tout de suite and 
the tooter the sweeter," they seemed mildly sur- 
prised. They even brought Germanisms to us, 
such as the word kapoot, unheard by us till then. 
These apparitions in black seemed like ghosts of 
people who had died in August 19 14. Neverthe- 
less, one felt that Europe was resuming being her- 
self. 

Our plans matured for another large onslaught 
upon the retreating enemy. The line which was 
within ten miles of Mons in the north halted some- 
what at Valenciennes and along the confines of the 
great forest of Mormal. It was planned for our 
regiments and for another division to contain the 
forest, to capture the road-junction of Bavai, and 
press on for the prize of the fortress of Maubeuge. 

Of all the attacks since August 21 this was the 
largest and the most ambitious. It was entirely 
successful. It turned out to be the final battle of 
the war. With our victorious Spartans in the cen- 
tre and splendid advances on the right flank and 



274 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

on the left, victory in its completest form was 
granted to the Allies. 

So the battalion marched through rain and mud 
over the old battle-ground of St. Python to Escar- 
main. At Escarmain, at the cross-roads, the 
French had put up a stuffed cock on a pole — em- 
blem of victory, and no doubt existed in French 
minds as to the issue. We were billeted for a day 
under very crowded conditions at Escarmain. 

At dawn on November 4 we set out for the line, 
passing out of the village with pipers playing. 
The sun rose over the misty valleys and ridges 
below, and fresh breezes and clear skies enveloped 
the first morning of the fight. We made our first 
halt, and rested below our batteries on the Sep- 
meries road, most of the men with their fingers in 
their ears, whilst the gunners, with their sixty- 
pounders and 8-inch howitzers, kept giving us the 
warning to "hold tight." When the march was 
resumed we began to see the first wounded. We 
passed a dead German lying with his head in a 
pool of blood, and then batches of German prison- 
ers carrying stretchers. The wounded of our own 
comrades began to come down, and told of an easy 
progress, stopped now and then by isolated ma- 
chine-gun posts of the enemy. 

In the afternoon we marched into Villers Pol, 
and most men, after sweeping and cleaning the 
billets, lay down and rested a few hours before the 
march to the line. Hot suppers and rum-rations 
were dished out after midnight, and then at 2 A.M., 
with all the extra fighting impedimenta of shovels 
and bombs and sand-bags, and what not, the bat- 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 275 

talion marched cautiously on, scouts reconnoitring 
each stretch of country in front, and reporting all 
clear before we crossed it. It was a dark and 
windy night, and crossing the scenes of the day's 
fighting, we remarked here and there in the dark 
the vague shapes of the dead. 

The situation on the night of the 4th-5th No- 
vember was that our ist and 2nd Brigades had 
come within 300 yards of their objective, the "Red 
line" drawn beyond Preux au Sart. The task of 
our brigade was to pass through the ist and 2nd 
Brigades, take the "Red line" position, and press 
on to Amfroipret near the Belgian frontier, to 
Bermeries, Buvignies, and the outskirts of Bavai. 
That done, the ist Brigade would push on next day 
following to Maubeuge. Thus, just before dawn, 
we reached the position before Preux au Sart, and 
went into battle formation there. The barrage 
broke out like a tempestuous drum announcement 
heralding the dawn, and our men marched on. 
The ''Red line" was passed at twenty to seven, the 
second objective at ten minutes past eight. Am- 
froipret was taken in the course of the morning, 
though the attack was temporarily stayed by ma- 
chine-gun fire from the village cemetery. The 
enemy retirement, however, continued, and at nine 
o'clock the battalion, preceded by tanks, was ap- 
proaching Bermeries, from which desultory ma- 
chine-gun and trench-mortar fire was proceeding. 

Some difficulty was found in locating the enemy 
in Bermeries, and progress slowed down till after 
noon. At 12.30 the village was still held by Ger- 
mans. Tanks were, however, exploring the posi- 



276 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiii 

tion, followed by our advance companies. A fur- 
ther German retirement occurred, and Bermeries 
proved empty of the enemy. An enemy line was 
located 400 yards beyond it, in the low scrub along- 
side an orchard. At 1.30 a sharp encounter took 
place between one of our companies and a number 
of German machine-gunners. The enemy was in 
deep slits, and his positions cleverly hidden. It 
took about an hour altogether to locate him cer- 
tainly and dispose of him. Our men made a bay- 
onet charge, and all the Germans were either killed, 
wounded, or taken prisoner. This was all the ac- 
tive fighting there was for our fellows, though that 
is not to say it was all the privations they endured. 
The men wallowed in mud all night, and it rained 
and rained, never ceased raining. The German 
artillery was very active, though firing largely at 
random. There were a number of casualties from 
stray shells. The last men to fall in the war fell, 
as it were, by accident; strolling back from the line 
toward Headquarters; they were being brought 
back to Bermeries for a few hours' rest, and were 
lighting cigarettes and chatting in little knots when 
two heavy shells came in their midst, tore one 
man's face ofif, ripped up another's stomach, and 
the like. 

The day after this advance we rested, and the 
ist and 2nd Brigades ''carried on" and took Mau- 
beuge. In the dead of night the "Bill Browns," 
with rifles slung, filed into the town of Maubeuge 
by the only way left (all bridges being blown up), 
by stone steps to the moat, which they crossed with 
the water half up their legs, and then they entered 



XIII THE GREAT ADVANCE 277 

by a stone archway the ancient and formidable 
fortress. All was silent but for the sound of their 
feet. And they marched along the empty streets 
to the grey parade-ground of the Place des 
Casernes. The Germans had gone; the French 
slept. Only in the morning did the civilian popu- 
lation realise that the tyrant had vanished. So 
Maubeuge came into our hands. Many men who 
in 1914 had retired through the Maubeuge region 
at the time of the retreat from Mons felt a special 
pride and pleasure in their making good the land 
from which they had been obliged to retire. 

Meanwhile at Versailles the anxious delegates 
of ruined Germany were fretting over the armis- 
tice terms. We learned that delegates had passed 
through the lines when we rested a night at La 
Longueville, coming into Maubeuge. On No- 
vember 10 all of the division were in or around 
Maubeuge, and were prepared to go on. It would 
doubtless have been our battalion's turn to push 
forward, but the Angel of Peace intervened. On 
the morning of the nth came from Headquarters 
the barely credible intelligence that the Germans 
had signed the treaty of surrender, and that from 
1 1 A.M. hostilities would cease. Thus the impos- 
sible intervened, and as by miracle wrote finis 
across the four and a quarter years of bloodshed 
and strife which we are accustomed to call the 
Great War. 



XIV 

THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 

We had dwelt too long in darkness to accustom 
ourselves readily to the new light of peace, and 
when on the morning of November ii, 1918, the 
strange announcement of armistice was made, we 
merely felt confused and incredulous. It was such 
a common event in the army for the desired thing 
to be invented in rumour that the authentic and 
official news of complete victory was merely ac- 
cepted in the same category as "The Kaiser has 
taken poison," and the rest of the optimistic tales 
of the hour. I was first to get the news, for the 
brigade runner came with the message, and could 
not find to whom to deliver it. Guessing what it 
was, I opened his missive and read — An armistice 
has been signed with the Central Powers a a a. 
Hostilities will cease as from 1 1 o'clock this morn- 
ing a a a. Directly he had gone I took the news 
to my comrades. Some believed, some did not. 
Most asked me what it meant, but some with 
imagination caught my right hand in both theirs, 
and expressed themselves as bursting with joy. 
Half an hour later most of the battalion was drill- 
ing, and the officers calmly and politely told the 
men the war had ended. Then men began to go 
about like owls disturbed at mid-day, and kept 

278 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 279 

saying to one another without any particular ex- 
citement, "What do you think of it, eh?" 

The first thought of those who understood and 
believed was, ''No more bombs, no more shells, no 
more bullets; we are safe, then, after all, we shall 
get back to our homes, to our wives, to mother and 
father, and all we love in Blighty." The immeas- 
urable relief of escape from the daily menace of 
death! The pulse of some, even of the bravest, 
beat more freely. They were spared. Their 
wives, mothers, children, and friends were re- 
prieved. For dying was not the hardest thing; 
the hardest thing was plunging one's home in sor- 
row. 

Two days after the signing of the armistice there 
was a men's concert in one of the many French 
steel works. There was a platform on which were 
ranged our instrumental band and pipers. In a 
vast shadowy hall the troops were accommodated. 
Quartermaster-sergeants were dishing out rum 
punch, which the officers had afforded us. A new 
good humour had come into men's voices. The 
verity of victory had suffused the surface of all 
minds. The soldiers sang in chorus to the band, 
they sang even to the pipes. Singers had an un- 
precedented reception, and when as answer to en- 
core the band struck up "Take me back to Blighty," 
the whole vast audience of Tommies seemed to 
melt and fuse in its enthusiasm. The theme of go- 
ing back home touched their hearts as never be- 
fore. For now suddenly, after years of hope and 
hopelessness, it had become a practical matter. 

The day after the concert there was a lecture by 



28o A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

a Divisional Staff officer on Demobilisation, on 
that first scheme of slip-men and pivotals and one- 
man-business-men which proved so slow and 
worked so ill. Said the officer, "I know perhaps 
you won't agree, but I'd like to say to you men that 
you might do worse than think of going into the 
army as a means of living after the war. Condi- 
tions of service will be much improved." Where- 
upon there was a roar of laughter throughout the 
whole audience, and we felt somehow that was the 
best joke of the whole armistice time. 

The Demobilisation scheme dashed the hopes 
of some of the forward men who thought of being 
home in a few weeks, but it nevertheless contributed 
to confirm the impression in backward minds that 
the war was really over. We remained a week at 
Maubeuge and ruminated on the new time. The 
mysterious silence of no shells had set in, and when 
it was broken by the distant rumble of an exploded 
German mine or ammunition dump the men won- 
dered nervously if the war had not broken out 
again. Returning French prisoners appeared on 
the road, and also civilians with their household 
goods. At night, even on the night of the nth of 
November, motor-cars had come up with great 
headlights and windows began to be left unshut- 
tered and unscreened again. The nights of wait- 
ing at Maubeuge were still and cloudless. And 
one realised the night once more was pure. The 
trouble that had obscured her innocency was gone. 
There was no longer any sinister doubt when the 
moon 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 281 

Unveiled her peerless light and o'er the dark 
Her silver mantle threw. 

An assurance of peace calmed the heart, and it was 
good to walk at night and reflect on what had been 
and what would be no more. 

Two days before setting out we marched to the 
barrack square in Maubeuge to a General Thanks- 
giving, and as was very fit, our voices joined in 

O God, our help in ages past, 
Our hope for years to come. 

In the secular mind, however, the question of 
the future was uppermost, and a new crop of ru- 
mours arrived, the most widespread being that we 
were going to Paris to be reviewed by Jofifre and 
were then going to London. But the simple fact 
was that we were detailed for garrison duty in 
Germany, and must first fulfil a long march — 
through Belgium and Rhineland to the banks of 
the great mother river of Europe, the Rhine. The 
battalion commenced to do practice route-marches. 
The men had to wash their equipment and shine 
up brasses and clean boots in their old training- 
barracks style. Discipline became more severe, 
and we understood that we had got to dazzle the 
Belgians and impress the Germans by our smart- 
ness and by the austerity of our fulfilment of duty. 

The first week after the armistice therefore was 
one of ardent preparations to shine. New cloth- 
ing was brought up and the old discarded. All 
kits were revised, and if any man was short of any- 
thing which he could not make up from the sup- 
plies he was warned to pick it up somewhere, and 



282 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

if any one of any other unit left the desirable thing 
about, ''looking spare," he had better "see it oflf." 

Whilst the battalion had to "dump" a great 
quantity of impedimenta, such as for instance, its 
dulcetone piano, boxes of books, and bits of furni- 
ture, it had also to make up deficiencies. Bicycles 
were short, and they were needed as an absolute 
necessity for the billeting parties who went ahead 
each morning to take billets for the rest of us. We 
had been originally supplied with eight bicycles. 
We now only had three, and the number had some- 
how to be made up. 

The adjutant was anxious, and I remember his 
coming into the orderly room on the night of the 
1 6th of November. 

"I hope something's being done about these bi- 
cycles," says he. 

"It's all right, sir," says a drill-sergeant. 
"We've got the four best robbers in the battalion 
out to-night, and I shall be surprised if the num- 
bers are not all right by morning." 

"You have? . . . Right oh!" says the adjutant, 
and he goes away. 

Presently one of the "robbers" comes in with a 
bicycle, and is hailed with joy. The bicycle is 
placed up against a wall. It belongs to a despatch- 
rider. He has jumped from his seat and gone into 
a house to deliver a message; directly he had got 
inside the house the "robber" had seized the ma- 
chine. 

However, the owner being a sharp boy sees the 
back wheel of the bicycle disappearing at our 
door. He runs across the road and comes in also. 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 283 

** 'Ere, wot's the gime?" says he. "Who's 
pinched my bike?" 

The drill-sergeant then pounces upon him. 

"Don't you know how to come in to an orderly 
room?" asks he in his harshest regimental style, 
"What do you mean by it? Stand to attention 
when you are being spoken to. How should there 
be a bicycle of yours in here?" 

The despatch-rider is cowed, apologises, and 
thinks perhaps he has made a mistake. 

When he has gone the bicycle is wheeled out at 
a back door for safety. But the original owner, 
still suspicious, is watching through the window 
and therefore sees this operation, goes round to 
the back and meets the man with the bicycle in the 
yard, claims it, and rides ofif. 

I expect he cursed us, but did not think very 
much of the matter. For it's a way they have in 
the army. 

During the march my name was taken one day 
for the deficiency of an entrenching-tool handle. 
There were some others in the same case, and we 
were marched before a charming young officer 
who had only been a few months with us, but had 
nevertheless absorbed the army way. 

"Now look here, you fellows," says he. "It's a 
lot of bally rot your not having entrenching-tools. 
You know jolly well you dumped them some time 
or other. But you've got to have them, and there's 
lots of Taffies and Bill Browns about. See each 
of you has one by to-morrow morning or there'll 
be trouble." 

"I want the battalion to be the very best upon 



284 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

the road," said the colonel, and every one of us was 
intent that it should be so. 

It was bright, frosty weather, and the battalion 
in a new glitter of peace looked very well on the 
march. It was not too unpleasant an ordeal for 
the men, though some were ready to criticise when 
they saw they had still to carry gas-masks and steel- 
helmets and a hundred and twenty rounds of am- 
munition as well as heavy packs and well-oiled 
rifles and equipment with every brass a-glitter. 
But most of the sensible ones understood that it 
would be best to enter Germany in full fighting 
trim, and with all the reinforcement of moral in- 
fluence which training and discipline and style 
could afiford. 

The load to be carried was heavy, and so a med- 
ical inspection was ordered, and men likely to fall 
out on the march were separated ofif and kept be- 
hind. Bad characters who might be expected to 
run amuck in Germany were also ordered to be 
held back, but I do not think our colonel found any 
bad enough for that. General Rawlinson's mani- 
festo was served out to each of us, and we read that 
whereas Prussian discipline was founded on fear 
ours was founded on mutual trust between officers 
and men, and we wondered if that was so, but we 
did not wonder much. A cartload of new boots was 
brought up for the torment of our feet should our 
soles give way; all the last preparations were made 
for departure, and on the morning of the i8th No- 
vember we set out from Maubeuge. 

It was misty and frosty, and it threatened to 
snow as we marched out in our long files, keeping 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 285 

studiously to our right on the way to the last vil- 
lage of France, Villers Sire Nicolet. The road 
was hard after several days' frost. We were all 
provided with gloves, which kept our fingers from 
being chilled, and the march was pleasant. We 
must have afforded a strange contrast, all rosy- 
cheeked, well-equipped, well-set-up, marching 
with decision and style, we and the returning Brit- 
ish army of prisoners we met on the road, the hag- 
gard-faced soldiers, worn out and emaciated, who 
in fives and sixes came straggling in from Namur 
and Charleroi where they had been liberated in 
accordance with the armistice conditions. They 
were dressed in parts of old German uniforms. 
Some had black trousers with broad white stripes, 
some were wearing shabby Prussian blue, nearly 
all had German caps decorated with little Union 
Jacks and French and Belgian colours. They car- 
ried bits of equipment, such as gas-masks or haver- 
sacks; their boots were worn out; on their chests 
large numbers were printed, in convict style. And 
they walked slowly and lamely, being absolutely 
worn out, their arms and legs wasted away, their 
eyes sunken and with flabby folds of flesh hanging 
beneath them. No recruiting officer, even at the 
hardest time of the war, would have enrolled such 
specimens of humanity in an army. Yet they had 
all been stalwart fellows when they fell into Ger- 
man hands. Doubtless their condition and appear- 
ance would be much improved by the time they 
got to England — thanks to the care of French and 
English in the rear — but for us who saw them as 
delivered from captivity the sight is unforgettable. 



286 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

The French prisoners seemed to be in much bet- 
ter case, and they had evidently been treated with 
more consideration by the enemy. But after the 
returning British soldiers the most pitiable picture 
was presented by the returning civilians who, with 
improvised barrows but no horses, oxen, or mules, 
were wheeling the indispensables of home from one 
territory to another. Many of these civilians came 
from remote places and had chalked on the bar- 
row-sides the names of the towns they had passed 
through. Large flags flew from the front corners 
of the barrows giving them a very picturesque ap- 
pearance. Young men walked in the shafts, old 
men and women pushed behind, children lay on 
confused heaps of mattresses and furniture above. 
When questioned we found these people made such 
great distances as fifty or sixty kilometres in a day. 
They were pitiable, but were in wonderful spirits, 
being free and going home, and they frequently 
gave us a hearty greeting, and bade us make an end 
of the German. 

Such passers-by formed the main interest of the 
day's march, and in the afternoon we came to our 
first halting-place, an extensive but desolate old- 
fashioned village called Villers Sire Nicolet, and 
in the rainy evening we went into rather dark and 
cold billets, redeemed here and there by the bright 
fires of the hospitable French. 

Before dawn on the morning of the 19th the 
pipers were playing "Hey, Johnny Cope." It had 
rained all night, and the morning was dark. We 
paraded in the gloom of a wet dawn, and with our 
somewhat heavy impedimenta stamped out toward 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 287 

Belgium along the heavy and broken roads. Pos- 
sibly the few miles of borderland were nobody's 
care, and so the roads were not in repair. That 
was the impression we obtained. And the people 
in the infrequent farm-houses seemed all poverty- 
stricken. However, we climbed on and crossed 
the frontier line near Givry. Here a queue of 
poor villagers turned out to stare at us, the women 
bundles of cotton, the men in capacious muddy 
sabots and the baggiest of old clothes. Not a word 
from them, not a smile. 

At this point, coming as we did from the suffer- 
ing regions of the north of France, we did not ex- 
pect much excitement on the part of the villagers, 
and so we accepted the silence of the first poor Bel- 
gians and were somewhat surprised at the flags and 
bunting displayed at the next point on our road, 
Estinne au Mont. Now rather better-looking 
crowds turned out to see us and chattered volubly 
about us. ^'They'll be cheering in a minute," 
somebody exclaimed incredulously, and surely 
enough there broke out a will-o'-the-wisp of a hur- 
rah and a ''Vive les Anglais!" from several lips. 
From there onwards our reception grew warmer 
and warmer until our progress took its foredes- 
tined guise of a triumphal procession. We passed 
under floral arches and strings of bunting, and 
alongside streams of smiling men and women who 
greeted us more and more happily and readily as 
we approached the large town of Binche. We 
realised then we were inside Belgium and were go- 
ing to be feted by the people. So our packs, which 
had been heavy enough in the morning in the mud 



288 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

of the frontier, grew lighter in the warmth and 
excitement of noon amid a cheering populace. 

In the afternoon we were conducted to billets 
in the best places in Binche, and every one seemed 
pleased to see us. In windows everywhere were 
paper posters which had possibly been printed by 
some propaganda department of the Allied Gov- 
ernments, and these conspired with the more real- 
istic greetings in French to produce many tongues 
of welcome. Thus we read : 

WE WILL NEVER FORGET YOU 
and 

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HEROES OF 
PERONNE AND BAPAUME 



and 



and 



HONNEUR A NOS LIBERATEURS 



ENGLAND IS SATISFIED: YOU HAVE DONE 
YOUR DUTY. 

The last notice, which was very widespread, trou- 
bled our minds a little. Perhaps it accounted for 
one corporal saying to a sergeant who found fault 
with him: "I have completed my contract. I 
am not a soldier any longer, but a civilian," a re- 
mark on which the colonel made many judicious 
comments with regard to the continuance of disci- 
pline. 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 289 

However, the cheery faces of the townsfolk and 
the breezy welcome of posters and banners, the 
brazen trumpetings of the civic band, the Lord 
Mayor's show in which our major-general 
marched to the plaudits of the crowd, probably 
moved us less than the rumour of beer, of which 
commodity we soon found the estaminets to be 
full at a not exceptional price — and good beer of 
the old pre-war standard. The sight of rows of 
shop-windows was gladdening in itself after the 
desolation we had passed through, and we went 
into these expensive shops of Binche and spent for 
the sake of spending. There was a fair amount 
for sale. One could buy a Bath bun for three 
francs, and a penny bar of chocolate for one franc 
seventy-five centimes. Soap, in need of which we 
stood at the time, was four francs the tablet, black- 
ing a franc a tin, bootlaces two francs a pair. 
Then the shopkeepers, although their wares were 
priced in francs, had only German currency, and 
they still reckoned one mark as one franc twenty- 
five centimes, though it must have been doubtful 
if the mark was worth much more than half a 
franc. There were some warm disputes over 
change, but they generally finished with our men 
accepting marks and pfennigs. Our pockets were 
soon full of the black war money of our enemies 
and the wretched zinc coinage of Belgium. Not 
a few astute townsmen began exchanging money 
for our men, telling them their francs were now 
no good and it was better to have marks. 

At Binche we nibbled at the joys of liberated 
Belgium. It was left for next day to taste them 



290 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

to the full when we reached the neighbourhood of 
Charleroi and were welcomed by the hearty popu- 
lation of Marchiennes au Pont. 

On the 20th we marched off at nine in the morn- 
ing with the abundant rub-dub-dub of the drums 
and the joyful clamour of the pipes and took the 
high-road that runs due east for Fontaine I'Eveque 
and Charleroi. We were all in a good humour, 
and when the music of the pipes died down we car- 
ried on with whistling choruses and songs whilst 
the thickly populated region through which we 
passed was decked with signs of welcome. We 
were on good roads, and our hearts were lighter, 
realising that the first part of our march was in 
any case not so much duty as festivity. Joyful 
crowds of liberated people saluted us, and we 
shouted back to them as we passed. About two in 
the afternoon we reached Marchiennes. 

We put down the heavy packs from our shoul- 
ders and laid aside our rifles, cleaned our boots 
after the long march, and still a little lame in the 
feet and racked in our backs, stepped nevertheless 
eagerly forth into the gay Belgian town hung with 
bunting and flags and flocking with a joyful, ex- 
cited populace of civilians. We were in that mood 
when the apparition of the first electric tram glid- 
ing into view gladdened the eyes, when the smell 
of locomotive smoke and steam across the grimy 
railway lines reminded of home, when the sight 
of young men in numbers in civilian attire made 
the heart beat faster with anticipative joy at our 
own coming release. The town was posted with 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 291 

joyful greetings: ''Honneur a nos liberateurs!" 
''Honneur mix Heros!" "Madame la Guerre est 
morte." And on blue paper in many windows 
was printed "Welcome, Tommy! We never 
doubted you would come again." 

The eyes of men and women looked gladly at us; 
there was a tenderness in the gaze which was a little 
puzzling after the sternness and desolation of bat- 
tle-fields. The people were really glad. The 
heart had been touched, and in all faces there was 
that trembling as on the waters at dawn, the emo- 
tion of human tenderness suddenly awakened not 
in one but in all. The women and the children 
caught our hands as we passed, and lisped up at us, 
"La guerre est finie" or "Apres quatre annees, 
apres quatre annees!" as if to suggest their relief, 
their infinite relief, at the flight of the enemy and 
the entry of our army of liberation. 

On the Friday the last German battalion with- 
out horses but with men in the shafts of the wag- 
gons passed through the town. On the following 
Wednesday the first British infantry arrived. The 
English soldier was a novelty, a hero and a saviour 
at the same time. There was hidden virtue in 
khaki, and even to touch the common soldier was 
good. There was magnetic contact between us and 
the crowd. The girls smiled on us, men shook 
hands with us promiscuously, and children reached 
up to be kissed. Great numbers of little children 
were in the street, some with their mothers, some 
without, and all were radiantly innocent and wel- 
coming. It was common to see five or six little 
ones hanging on to the sleeves of one of our stal- 



292 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

wart fellows, much to his pleasure though also to 
his astonishment. We had not been treated in this 
way before. 

At three in the afternoon two of us entered a 
smart cafe where stout Belgians in frock-coats and 
silk hats were standing free drinks of cognac at 
two marks the petit verre. Other fellows in an- 
other part of the town found a brewery where beer 
was free, good beer served out as fast as arms of 
buxom maids could serve it. It was one of the 
rare occasions in the life of the soldier when one 
of his ideals is realised. 

"The brewery gates stand open and they are giv- 
ing away beer." 

"Never!" 

We spoke with the benign and somewhat grand 
Belgians who were treating the Tommies to cognac 
and paying for it from sheaves of spotless German 
notes. "Every one in Marchiennes seems excited," 
said I. "It's a wonderful welcome." 

"But there's more to come," replied they, finger- 
ing the civic medallions on their watch-chains. 
"At six o'clock there will be a procession de flam- 
beaux." 

"Yes, and a band of a hundred and fifty instru- 
ments. There will be a fete. We shall all dance 
in the streets." 

Six was sometime after nightfall, but the town 
was lit up from end to end. The crowd of civil- 
ians and soldiers thronged the roads. For my part 
I stood and waited in the town square for the 
emergence of the band and the procession, and was 
curious. Several comrades were within hail. All 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 293 

felt a little tired and stiff after the march. They 
did not dream they were going to dance for hours 
that night without a sigh of tiredness or a twinge 
of stiffness. 

Out came the band at a jaunty stride, and every 
bandsman wore a silk hat, out came the town ban- 
ners, and then strings of coloured lanterns of paper 
with glimmering lights inside — and then the mur- 
murs of the crowd and a swaying toward the poles 
on which the lanterns hung. Old folk were in the 
crowd and young, gay girls and cheerful matrons, 
and there were our soldiers, and, besides all, an 
inordinate number of clinging laughing chil- 
dren. 

I was suddenly grasped by two middle-aged Bel- 
gians of a prosperous commercial type; each took 
one of my arms, others took their other arms, and 
with a palm on each neighbour's back we started 
to dance after the band, shoulders down, head up, 
knees and toes kicking out in a pas de joie. I had 
not been in an orgy before, but good-humouredly 
fell in. We plunged after the band, singing the 
''Marseillaise," the "Brabangonne," and what not 
as we went. 

I broke, however, with my sedate companions, 
got to one side and began to watch the tumultuous 
joy-crowd go past. Here my real adventure com- 
menced. I saw a poor woman beside a lamp-post 
trying to comfort a little child that was crying, and 
stooping down to give my aid the youngster grasped 
my hand. Another standing by took my other 
hand, and in less than a minute I had rejoined the 
dance with six wee children. We danced with a 



294 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

will all along the fringe of the throng between the 
main body and the shop-windows, and gradually 
worked our way from the back to the front of the 
procession and the immediate vicinity of the won- 
derful lanterns and the triumphant blare of the 
quick-stepping band. Thus we traversed the 
whole town twice, and then when the band stopped 
in the town square we joined hands in a circle as 
did so many other strings of folk, and danced there. 
And the children had words for every song, street 
words generally, the favourite being a parody of 
some song to which the German soldiers had 
marched: 

Margarita, si tu veux 
Faire mon bonheur, 
Casse la gueule 
A I'empereur, 

and every time a tune was ended all broke off and 
threw up their hands and cheered. 

We went to a sweet-shop and bought packets of 
peppermints, and then to a pastry-cook's and 
bought big slices of gingerbread for all and each. 
The pastry-cook gave me a cup of coffee, for which 
she said I might pay after peace had been signed. 
Then we walked slowly through the streets munch- 
ing cake — much to the amazement of soldiers and 
civilians alike. 

We joined in the dance again, and the children 
never seemed tired. They were Madeleine, Ma- 
rie, Marie, Rene, Albert (le roi), Marguerite, and 
the eldest was only nine. Their enjoyment of the 
fete was pure and complete. It possessed the 
whole of their little bodies. Round and round 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 295 

we went in a circle till we were dizzy, and back 
and forth, approaching and retiring, whilst all 
about us was the whirl of other circles mostly of 
British soldiers and Belgian girls but often of 
sedate matrons and the fathers of the community. 
We had some collisions but no casualties, for the 
children held hands so tightly that they never got 
knocked down. At one point little Marguerite, so 
low down and far from my face, kissed my fingers 
as she danced; at another point all these little ones 
were down on their knees saying their prayers in 
chorus. Onlookers cried out in pauses of the 
dance, "A bas les Boches!" and we replied, "A has 
les sales Boches!" or rubbish of the same kind, 
without, however, meaning anything sinister. 
Ours was a dance of pure joy, an infection of the 
time. For us the Pied Piper was playing, and 
we had left the bourgeois fathers and mothers be- 
hind. What a wonderful happiness was that of 
the children who followed the piper, for I believe 
they always remained children and danced to the 
music whilst the rest of the world sat with scored 
brows and calculated and judged. 

"I see that in Rome you believe in doing as 
Rome does," said a fellow-soldier to me in barracks 
afterwards. 

''You were well away," said another. 

"You were drunk all right last night, my boy," 
said a third. 

If so, not drunk with the portly Belgians' cognac 
or the beer, but drunk with joy, with the spirit of 
peace. The vast human emotion that had sent 
mad London, Paris, Brussels, New York, had 



296 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

come to us at last, and we were swimming amidst 
its waves. 

And the children? They understood in their 
little hearts what was in the air. Marchiennes 
was theirs. It was a children's festival. 

At last we parted. The mother who somehow 
had been struggling after us through the crowds 
and keeping us in view claimed little Madeleine, 
and then each one kissed me good-bye and claimed 
me for that morrow that never comes, and I 
marched off, just in time to enter barracks by tat- 
too. And I washed and changed and lay down to 
sleep and did not feel tired in any limb. The won- 
derful refreshment of happiness! 

The progress into the obscurer parts of Belgium 
was like rediscovering a lost place, unearthing 
again a countryside after a great landslide. We 
had lost sight of the main part of Belgium in 1914, 
and we only recovered sight of it in these last weeks 
of the armistice year. It was a curious impres- 
sion. Belgium had not gone on after the German 
eruption. But her life had paused where it was 
and the hours remained where they were. All that 
the people knew of the bloodshed and fire of the 
strife related to the days of August 19 14; the bat- 
tles of the later times did not have for them the 
substantial reality they had for us. We could not 
talk to them of the Battle of the Somme or the 
German spring offensive of 1918, but had perforce 
to dig up the half-forgotten facts of the first month 
of the war and talk of them. 

We marched away into the Ardennes and were 
billeted in such obscure places as Bambois in the 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 297 

commune of St. Gerard, Wierde, Faulx, Tharout, 
Bende, Ernonheid, Zhevigny, Petit Thier, villages 
or hamlets far from the centres of life, far even in 
little Belgium where one would have thought no 
place could be far. 

"One night as I lay abed I heard a strange 
sound," said a Walloon farm-wife in her antique 
patois, "as if many horses were neighing in the 
fields in the distance. It was so disturbing that 
I awakened my husband." He went to find out 
what it could be, and he learned from neighbours 
that it was the Germans who had arrived. They 
came on horseback and not by the road, but 
streamed across the fields and through the woods 
in an endless array. All the sleepy hollows were 
invaded with brand-new warriors. 

In some places one met old folk who, besides 
their impressions of this war, remembered listen- 
ing to the cannonade in the Franco-German strife 
of 1870: they told me how they bent down to earth, 
listened and just heard it. And they listened and 
heard the bombardment in this war also. How 
staggering was August 1914 to these quiet people! 
The women wept, the men were nonplussed, the 
Prussians swaggered and bullied. The natives 
were so dumbfounded that they evidently amused 
the German soldiers, and the latter made sport of 
them, tying old folk together, back to back, and 
making them dance; tying priests to the altars of 
their churches, ducking old women in wells, firing 
barns, shooting almost at random and at sight. 
We listened to hundreds of tales of the behaviour 
of the enemy coming in and of the brutal things he 



298 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

did, and then again we listened to the story of the 
way he went out of the country in November 1Q18, 
humbled, dejected, with eyes which could look no 
one in the face. 

Most of the villages had their graves of German 
dead — one here, another there, and sometimes one 
would discover (where opposition had been met) 
large collections of graves and military cemeteries. 
There was a large enclosure of stone graves at 
St. Gerard — a sad memorial of the grand style of 
death and war in the braver days of that tragical 
first August. 

There had been resistance at St. Gerard on the 
part of the rear-guard of the Belgian Army rein- 
forced by French. About five hundred friends 
and foes had perished, and the Germans, with a 
touch of that sense of honour and valour which 
distinguished them until the gospel of necessity 
ate into their morals, gave to each and all an equal 
place in the memorial of their death. Thus at the 
head of the graveyard, instead of the suffering 
Jesus on the high cross that marks the cemeteries of 
the French, they had erected an obelisk of granite 
thirty feet high and eight feet in thickness, and on 
the height of this massive column was printed in 
Latin: 

Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori; 

and under that in German: 

ZUM GEDACHTNIS 
AN DIE KAMPFE BE! 
ST. GERARD 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 299 

IN DEN ANGEHORIGE 
DER DEUTSCHEN GARDE 
FRANZ OSISCHE UND 
BELGISCHE KRIEGER 
AM 23-24 AUGUST 1914 
DEN HELDENTOD FUR 
IHR VATERLAND STARBEN; 

and under that again was written in French: 

A LA MEMOIRE 

DES BRAVES SOLDATS 

ALLEMANDS BELGES ET FRANQAIS 

TOMBES 
POUR LEUR PATRIE 
DANS LES COMBATS DE 

ST. GERARD 
LE 23-24 AOUT 19 14; 

and under that again, on the ground, lay three 
huge, heavy, withered wreaths. 

Facing this obelisk were rectangles of perfect 
lawn, smooth black cinder-paths, and ten massive 
slabs of granite placed at intervals along the outer 
edges of the lawns for seats from which to look at 
the graves. The latter were ranged along four 
borders in a perfectly symmetrical design. The 
crosses were all of the same grey granite, smaller 
than graveyard crosses usually are — as if shorn of 
individuality — and all were the same in size and 
appearance. French were together, Belgians to- 
gether, Germans together. All was perfectly dis- 
ciplined, and as the design ran to 500 graves, 
whereas there were only 497 dead, three dummy 
stones had been put in that there might be no 
blank files amid the crosses. The rigid obedience 
of Prussia reigned also amid the dead. 



300 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

I walked from cross to cross and read the names, 
lingering longer where instead of names was writ- 
ten all that could be said of poor, maimed, indis- 
tinguishable bodies : 

Un frangais. 
Un soldat. 

Un artilleur frangais. 
Un tirailleur algerien. 
Ein deutscher soldat. 
Deutsch Pierre. 
Herve Desire. 
Petit Maurice. 
Pochet Louis d'Arras. 

There were many such, which spoke of a battle 
that must have been terrible in its way. I thought 
of the fate of the men to die so soon in the ad- 
venture, to be cut off then, such a wan fate, but bet- 
ter perhaps than to go through it all, through all 
the fields of blood, and perish at the last. There 
was one grave that broke up the symmetry and the 
discipline of this graveyard, one crooked cross of 
new unpainted wood in the midst of the grey stone. 
On it was written in German : "Here lies in God, 
Heinrich Widding, who died on the nth Novem- 
ber 1918." 

He died on the day of the armistice, the day 
which marked the failure of the great discipline 
of Prussia, and a weak, ordinary wooden cross 
marked the progress of humanity on this back- 
ground of grey stone. 

Not far from this scene were miles and miles of 
new-set wire before the trenches of Namur and the 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 301 

line of its mighty stream. And as we marched we 
thought how men might have died again in these 
fields and how by God's mercy men were spared. 
We crossed the majestical even-flowing Meuse on 
German pontoons beside the great heights of 
Wepion and Dave, and were ever on the trace of 
the insubordinate hurrying and retiring army. By 
many a German helmet and abandoned rifle, by 
many a broken-down, dismantled lorry or gun, 
we slogged on in mud and rain, noticing all the 
signs, but saying little to our neighbours as our 
feet pulsed to the drum-beat of the march and our 
hearts lifted to the strains of our questing and ex- 
ploring pipers. Always the peasants said: The 
Germans passed through so many days before; 
they marched with their officers under arrest; they 
marched silently, no songs, no more shouting of 
Nach Paris as of old. We began to see in nearly 
every village, and often along the road, effigies of 
the enemy set up by the inventive Belgians, regular 
Guy Fawkes figures, German soldiers' tunics and 
breeches stuff^ed with straw, a bunch of rags for a 
head, a casserole on that, and a gas-mask dangling 
from where the ears should be. Below all an 
ironical inscription: "Nach Paris" or ''Kapoot." 

*'How did he pass? Was he humble?" we 
asked often concerning the enemy. 

"When he came he was too grand for words, 
but when he returned he was petit, petit," said the 
Belgians, laughing gleefully. 

The same Belgians were not all so happy if one 
mentioned the subject of cows to them. "He drove 
away all our cows. The procession of his cows 



302 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

was much longer than the procession of his men. 
Whenever they want meat they kill another cow." 

We passed often the pitiful remains of but lately 
slaughtered cows — heads of cows with faces fresh 
and pleading, entrails of cows in horrible grey 
heaps, all along the way. And then all billets, all 
fields where the enemy had camped, were left in 
indescribable filth. There were the evidences of 
a complete breakdown of discipline. 

The country people showed us the black debris 
of great bonfires where the retreating soldiers had 
piled rifles and machine-guns and stores of all 
kinds, and set fire to them before crossing the 
frontier to Germany. Over most of these bon- 
fires sentries were placed, and the Germans were 
sufficiently German to shoot down any Belgian who 
attempted to steal from these funeral pyres of the 
war. 

At Bende a farmer told how a German officer 
received the news of the armistice. He was sitting 
at the table with a bottle of cognac and a German 
novel. A corporal came in with the communique, 
read it out, and handed it to the officer. The lat- 
ter, reading it, gave a deep groan, rose from his 
chair and threw his helmet with a crash upon the 
stone floor. Then he took a terrible draught at 
the cognac, omitting to pour it into a glass, but put- 
ting the whole bottle to his lips. He picked up his 
helmet and was quiet for a while, buried in thought. 
Then suddenly once more he started up, groaned 
again, flung down his hat and ran his fingers 
through his hair in an agony of grief. 

Later in the evening some of his men came and 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 303 

turned him out of his bedroom at the farm-house 
and said, ''Up till now you have slept in a bed and 
we in lousy straw. Now it is your turn to sleep in 
the straw." And so it was. 

Our way was rather uncertain, we had no fore- 
ordained plan of progress, but waited each night 
for the name of the village of the morrow. 
Rumour would have sent us a score of ways: to 
Paris to welcome King George at the Arc de 
Triomphe, to Brussels to be inspected by King Al- 
bert, to London, to Edinburgh, to Bonn, to Cob- 
lentz; it sent us by train and it sent us by lorry; it 
told us we should neither go to Germany nor re- 
turn home, but be held on ''lines of communica- 
tion." We approached Namur, but did not enter 
it; set off for Liege, but were turned away from it; 
were going to enter Germany by Aix-la-Chapelle 
and then by Stavelot and then by Beho. Nearing 
Huy we turned south-eastward, and crossing the 
Ourthe at Hamoir plunged into the Belgian Ar- 
dennes and came near to the Grand Duchy of 
Luxembourg. 

In all these wanderings the pipers were our com- 
panions, leading us and exploring the way. Two 
days, indeed, our instrumental band shared the 
honours with the pipers and we took our step to 
the solemn chanting march of "Sambre et Meuse," 
but the general intervened. We must not march 
to instrumental music and this band must cease. 
So before and after this instrumental blare of brass 
it was the slogan alone that we followed. 

The various companies of the battalion took it 



304 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

in turn to be first in the march, to be second, to be 
third, to follow up the rear, and when the company 
was in front it heard the music in all its immediacy 
and splendour, but when it was behind it only heard 
it far away like a child's voice sobbing or calling 
now and then. Passing over the crest of a hill the 
music rose with the height and then became silent 
as the vanguard dipped into the hollow beyond, 
rising however again from the basin of the valley 
and resounding back in increasing volume and hap- 
piness. When the road turned half-right skirting 
a hill the whole rear-guard was enlivened by the 
pipes coming as it were toward them. When the 
road lay even over marshes and plains the music was 
deadened, but when we entered forests it sprang 
to life as if the woodland were full of pipers — a 
clamorous, exulting, echoing music, that of the 
woods! And in the gorges and ravines Nature 
responded also from the rocks. 

Wonderful pipes! The men are inclined to 
grumble and fall out, but the pipes make a unity 
of them. Invisible tendons and muscles seem to 
connect the legs of all files, and all move as one, 
mechanically, rhythmically, certainly. The strong 
are reduced to the step, the weak are braced up to 
it. All bear the strain and share the strain. So 
we go on, and the miracle is in the power of the 
music. 

The first weeks of our journeying were punc- 
tuated by long halts, but the last ten days in the 
wettest of the weather were continuous marches. 
They made the most trying time of our experi- 
ence. Boots wore out. Clothes got wet through 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 305 

and could not be dried. Rations were often de- 
layed, and from continuous wearing of our heavy- 
packs our shoulders were galled. But the curios- 
ity to see Germany, the sense of an adventure, and 
the music kept our spirits up. At each new turn 
of the road the evenly pacing Highlanders in the 
vanguard of our column felt the way, explored the 
new way, playing as they went. 

Thus on the morning of the 12th December, 
parading in the wet before dawn, all in our water- 
proof capes, we left the last forlorn village of the 
Belgian Ardennes and climbed out to the mysteri- 
ous line which we all wished to see, that put 
friendly land behind and left only enemy country 
in front. One asked oneself what Germany would 
be like. But only an hour was needed to bring us 
to the custom-houses and the sentry-posts. We 
marched to attention, the rain streamed off our 
capes and trickled from our hats, but the tireless 
pipers played ahead, and by some one's inspira- 
tion the word went to the pipe-major, play "Over 
the Border"; so with a skirl that no weather could 
suppress we came up to the line to the strains of 

March, march, all in good order. 

All the blue bonnets are over the Border. 

Then the pipers separated from the main body 
and took up their stand in a phalanx by the side 
of the road beside the familiar figure of our 
brigadier, and they played "Hieland Laddie" 
whilst we marched past at the salute. Thus we 
entered Germany with no formalities and no enemy 
in view. We felt much cheered though the time 



3o6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

was cheerless, and we were full of curiosity to see 
the people we still called Huns, and men still talked 
of bayoneting and cutting throats. Presently we 
began to pass cottages, and we stared at them, but 
could see no people. Some of us shouted, "Come 
out and show yourselves" and "Come out of hid- 
ing," forgetting that "Jerry," as we called him, 
was hardly likely to be properly awake yet. 

When we began to see Germans they paid no at- 
tention to us whatever, but the woman at the well 
went on drawing water and the man with straw in 
his arms continued his way to his barn without 
vouchsafing a glance. We saw women talking 
with their backs to us, and they did not turn round 
to look at us as we passed. The children were as 
nonchalant toward the gay figures of our kilties 
as if they saw pipers every day of the week. It 
must be said we were a little taken aback, a little 
mortified. But it rained and rained and the drums 
became silent, sodden and soaked with the water, 
and we splashed patiently and mechanically on 
through the mud and over the broken roads. Our 
fours became twos, became long threads of single 
file as we picked our way amidst great holes and 
ruts and gliding rivers of yellow ooze. When 
there would otherwise have been a view of Ger- 
many, trailing mist, liquefying in the wind to bit- 
ter rain, swept hither and thither across our faces. 
On the sides of the roads was desolation, and oc- 
casionally still, as in Belgium, the sinister grey 
heaps of the entrails of cows which told of the in- 
disciplined German Army which had retired be- 
fore us. 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 307 

And with every one wet to the bone we climbed 
the excruciatingly broken road over the hill from 
Amel to Moderscheide. In this wretched Ger- 
man village we were billeted, and the men made 
huge bonfires in the barnyards, and stood round 
them to dry themselves. The Germans seemed 
to be rather afraid of us, and servile, but very poor. 
Tottering old men insisted on shaking hands with 
us. The girls of the place seemed to be carefully 
kept out of our way. Billets were wretched, and 
the men, still fire-eating, hunted for better ones 
which, when they found, they intended to take by 
storm. Those who had revolvers expected to have 
to use them. But we only discovered that the na- 
tive inhabitants slept in worse places than we had, 
and that every one was of the mildest disposition. 
Our blankets and reserve rations were in the wag- 
gons stuck at the bottom of the Amel hill. There 
was only one thing to do — ^to get dry and make the 
best of it. 

Next day, with the skies still streaming, we made 
the longest continuous march, some thirty-six kilo- 
metres, and by that effort got well into Germany. 
The roads improved as we got further on, but the 
tramp through the forest of Zitter was long, 
marshy, and melancholy. Our company was first 
after the pipers, and had the full benefit of the 
music all the way. And we wandered inward, in- 
ward, with our seeking and haunting Gaelic melo- 
dies, into the depths of the hanging silent wood. 
It was strange how aloof Nature seemed to these 
melodies. In Scotland, or even in France, all the 
hills and the woods would have helped the music. 



3o8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

But in this German land all were cold toward us, 
and those endless pine-trees seemed to be holding 
hands with fingers spread before the eyes to show 
their shame and humiliation. There was a curi- 
ous sense that the road on which we trod was not 
our road, and that earth and her fruits on either 
hand were hostile. 

And how tired the men became, with half of 
them through the soles of their boots and with rack- 
ing damp in their shoulders and backs from their 
rain-sodden packs! But we listened still, whilst 
voluminous waves of melody wandered homeless 
over German wastes and returned to us: 

I heard the pibroch sounding, sounding, 
O'er the wide meadows and lands from afar, 

or to the stirring strains of the "March of the Bat- 
tle of Harlaw," or to the crooning, hoping, sob- 
bing of "Lord Lovat's Lament," and so went on 
from hour to hour through the emptiness of south- 
ern Germany. I thought of the wonderful theme 
which this march ofifered to the musician, and knew 
in anticipation that some day the world would 
possess some great musical composition on the 
March to the Rhine — an "1812" for Western Eu- 
rope which some Tschaikowsky would compose. I 
thought of its nature. Would it not begin with 
the blare of brass obscuring the tremulous hopes 
and fears of March 21, 1918 ; it would be noisy and 
ambitious and terrifying and vulgar. But this 
vulgarity would fail, met by the will of Britain, 
France, America, Italy, Serbia, the will of the rest 
pf humanity. The fears would gain ground till 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 309 

the point of surrender arrived. Then would com- 
mence the music of our strange march. No, not 
one in which "Deutschland iiber Alles" faded into 
"Rule Britannia" and the "Marseillaise," not one 
of exultancy of victor and utter rout of fleeing foe. 
But it would be sad, penetrating music, questing 
music, haunting music, all subdued and, as it were, 
prostrated. The voices of the German dead would 
rise into it, not exultantly, nor menacingly, but in 
curious sadness, as if they were unreconciled with 
their own sacrifice; the German land and the Ger- 
man forests would speak their shame in it, the Ger- 
man gods would grow small and abase themselves, 
and all that the proud Wagner ever conceived 
would die away to a piping of birds in one note 
over wildernesses. The fall of Germany was a 
greater event than the victory of those who strove 
against her. 

The pipes seemed to express the thought, the 
Gaelic wailing in the rain and the steady march 
through the ancient woods. 

Still we swung along the way to the Rhine, and 
knew our halt could not be far. However, when 
we thought we had just about reached our camp- 
ing-ground for the night, we came to a guide-post 
which showed it still to be seven kilometres on. 
But that was at the top of a long hill, and the road 
ran gently down through woods the whole way. 
The colonel sent a message to play the light- 
hearted song of the "Men of Portree." The rain 
had stopped, and an evening sky unveiled a more 
cheerful light. So with an easy, inconsequent air 
we cast off care and tripped away down to the sub- 



3IO A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

stantial and once prosperous bit of Rhineland 
called Hellenthal, well on our way to Cologne. 

I had serious misgivings before entering Ger- 
many. My comrades vowed such vengeance on 
the people that I anticipated something worse than 
war. In theory, no treatment was going to be bad 
enough and cruel enough for the German. We 
were out to wreak on him four years' war-weari- 
ness; we were ready to settle all the old scores of 
treachery on the field and mischance in the fight. 
What, therefore, was my surprise to find, after two 
or three days in Germany, all our roaring lions 
converted into sucking doves. 

It was an extraordinary lesson in psychology — 
how, without too much prompting from officials, 
a whole nation comported itself to a victorious 
enemy army, and how that army, without any 
prompting whatever, took up an unexpected atti- 
tude of friendliness after vowing intense and ever- 
lasting hatred. Our authorities certainly expected 
a different attitude, for commanding officers had 
been asked to leave behind any specially bad char- 
acters who might be likely to get out of hand in 
enemy country, and we were all warned to stick to 
one another and not quarrel amongst ourselves, as 
we should need to preserve a united front in the 
country of the enemy. Every man in a billeting 
party was obliged to carry a revolver. Some units, 
I believe, made their entry into all towns and vil- 
lages with fixed bayonets. But public opinion and 
atmosphere was different from what had been ex- 
pected. 

No, there was not much craft or cunning calcu- 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 311 

lation in the German attitude to us. The same at- 
titude was to be found in the smallest and remotest 
villages as in the large towns. And in our army 
the reaction was the same in all the various units 
which I met afterwards at Cologne. 

It is true that the German was rather afraid, 
though he seldom showed it in any of his actions. 
The German is rather reserved and secretive by 
nature — a great contrast to the Frenchman, who 
is nervous and expressive. After living years 
among the talkative and excitable French and Bel- 
gians, Tommy Atkins did not probe beneath the 
exterior calm of his German hosts. 

Nevertheless fear was not very deep in the Ger- 
man either. His strongest feeling was one of re- 
lief that the war was over — on any terms. Our 
coming in was a secondary evil only. Then as re- 
gards his sensitive national pride, was he not able 
to nurse in secret the remembrance that he had held 
the world at bay, and had only given in at last be- 
cause the odds were too great! 

When we entered into the German houses we 
saw on many walls and shelves the photographs of 
German soldiers, and as we asked of each we 
learned the melancholy story — wounded, dead, 
dead, wounded. Death had paused at every Ger- 
man home. The women brought out their family 
albums and showed us portraits of themselves as 
they were before the war, and asked us to compare 
that with what they looked like now. And they 
showed us portraits of many German girls of whom 
we asked, "Where are they now?" and nearly al- 
ways received the answer, "Todt, grippe" (dead 



312 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

from influenza) ; so every soldier realised that Ger- 
man families had at least suffered equally with 
British families, and the thought rested in the 
mind. 

We were soon seated at table with young Ger- 
man men who but a few weeks before had been 
enemies in the field. They were cold to us at 
first, but our engaging warmth soon cheered them 
out of their apathy. Though our fellows knew 
no German they set to work to make Fritz under- 
stand their questions by expletives in pigeon 
French, and all manner of gestures and mimicry, 
punctuated by gufifaws of laughter and asides to 
one another. 

We were all agog to find out where Fritz had 
fought against us, where we had faced one another. 

"You at Ypres?" 

"Moi aussi at Ypres." 

"Compris Bourlon Wood? Moi at Bourlon 
Wood." 

"Bapaume? Yes, I know that fine, M'sewer. 
He's been at Bapaume. Wounded, M'sewer? 
Twice? Moi three times." 

Our fellows would unloose their tunics and show 
the scars on their bodies. The German boys would 
do the same. Then, being unable to express them- 
selves, both would grin in a sort of mutual satisfac- 
tion. 

At Hellenthal we talked till late at night with 
ex-soldiers of the Kaiser. I found a young man 
who had fought on the Russian front, and we com- 
pared places we both knew, the German diving 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 313 

into his memory for the Russian phrases he had 
picked up, such as chai peet (to drink tea) ; 
nitchevo (that's all right) ; and Ya ne poni mayii 
(I don't understand). At Call, near Schmidt- 
heim — terrible name for a place — we met a young 
man who had actually been opposed to our very 
unit in the Cambrai fighting of a year before. 
Wherever we went we made our exchanges, and, 
if anything, we found the private soldier of the 
German Army had had a more adventurous ca- 
reer than we had, and any man who had served 
any length of time had seen Russia and Macedonia, 
as well as both French and British battle-fronts in 
Western Europe. This testified to the mobility 
of the German Army, and to its restless energy in 
the devil's dance of conquering Europe. At 
Ermulheim a demobilise, in answer to our persua- 
sions, put on his uniform again to let us see what he 
looked like as a soldier; but the uniform was a new 
one, and he seemed to look too smart to be the real 
thing. We had never seen German soldiers in the 
smartness which no doubt they possessed well back 
behind the line, but were familiar only with the 
down-at-heel misery of prisoners, the sinister grey- 
ness of the enemy in front of us, or the shabbiness 
of the look of the dead. 

We no longer referred to them as Huns now 
that we were in Germany. Innate goodness of 
feeling prevented the use of that name, though in- 
deed the German was never Boche nor Hun to the 
rank and file, but always "Jacky" or "Jerry" or 
"Fritz." We soon learned that the Germans 



314 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

greatly disliked the appellation of "Boche," which 
apparently was not absolutely meaningless but 
meant "ill-begotten," or something of the sort. 

Racial affinity certainly greatly contributed to 
bring about this reconciliation between the rank 
and file and the German people they met. The 
cleanliness of German towns and villages and of 
the people, the fair complexions of the women, 
the first-class state of German civilisation from an 
artisan's point of view, all attracted after France. 
In the small shops the German women did not 
charge us three times the price and hand us out 
bad change. In the public-houses beer was two- 
pence a jug and wine five marks the bottle: there 
was not one price for Germans and a much higher 
price for British soldiers. In places where we had 
to draw water there was every convenience for that 
end, and in any case, if there were pumps, the Ger- 
mans did not take off the pump handles and make 
us walk half a kilometre for every pail of water. 
The Germans never offered us water at twopence 
a glass. Certainly the Germans were under watch- 
ful eyes and could not have played many tricks 
had they tried, and they were not left to their own 
devices and to the free exemplification of their 
character, as were the French and Belgians. 

"Well, Stephen," said a dour Scottish corporal 
to me at Zulpich, "I have been four and a half 
years out here, and have lived in France and in 
Belgium and now in Germany, and I can tell you 
the people I feel nearest to me are these. They 
are honester and cleaner, and somehow I feel I 
understand them better." 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 315 

He was ordinarily a very reserved fellow, but 
I know he had hated the Germans. 

I smiled, but I did not offer any comment. It 
is very fair to allow men to obtain a natural opinion 
and a first impression without the poison of war 
talk and propaganda. My corporal would mod- 
ify his opinion later without the help of a reminder 
of Germany's war crimes. 

In another talk to which I listened I heard also 
the following notable remark: "We don't hate 
them; we leave that for the politicians and the peo- 
ple at home." The remark was followed by a 
hearty laugh. 

In all this, however, our officers took little part. 
Attempts were made to stop fraternising, but it 
could not be prevented. The army cannot live in 
air-tight compartments on the Rhine. It is bound 
to live in the houses and shops and beer-halls and 
trams and cinemas, and to mix with Germans. 

Some notion of the new atmosphere got to our 
padre. The padres had for four years been 
preaching, "I came not to bring peace, but a 
sword," but now they realised that since armistice a 
larger message was available. Said our padre to 
me one day with relish: 

"Next Sunday I am going to be very daring and 
preach a sermon on loving your enemies." 

"Not a bad idea, sir," said I. 

"The padre is going to give us a sermon on 
'Love your enemies,' " said I to a knot of fellows. 

They smiled. 

"Tell him, 'Before he joined,' " said they. 
"Tell him, 'Before he fluffed.' " 



3i6 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

Hate is an impurity in the blood. It is intended 
to be discharged from the system. But there was 
never, even at the vv^orst moment, much of it in the 
British composition. 

It was not part of their blood, 
It came to them very late, 

as Kipling says. Our Christianity does not yet 
extend to forgiving our enemies at once. The 
British way is to clear off old scores first, and then 
forgive, but all in a cheery spirit — not with bile 
and malice. Endeavour was made to cultivate 
hate in our ranks as a useful aid to fighting quality, 
and many stories, as we know, were circulated 
about the enemy with the idea of working up a 
useful hate. No doubt some hated. But when 
the armistice was signed and we got away into Ger- 
man territory, that hate passed easily away, leav- 
ing behind the good-humoured Tommy. 

So we undoubtedly felt better in ourselves as we 
marched on to Cologne. We were more obstrep- 
erous, more noisy and wild in our ways, but also 
lighter in our steps, gayer in our hearts. We 
marched with a will — an army of optimists on the 
way home! 

In the whole British Army our division marches 
the best. Other units will always turn out with 
respect to look at us going by, and it is possible that 
our battalion was as good as any in the division, 
at least in the march to Cologne. We marched 
the whole way; we were not given the doubtful 
privilege of going part of the way by train, as some 
battalions were. Boot leather was very scarce; 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 317 

the weather was wet and the roads broken, but very 
few men fell out on the march, perhaps no more 
than three the whole way. On the road, at least 
when the weather was fine, we were a pleasure to 
the eye — all sparkling with polished brasses and 
bright buttons, all moving as one man, all platoons 
squared and trim. 

We were thoroughly proud of ourselves, as if 
we ourselves had won the war, and we entered each 
German village with that air of conscious pride 
and with that elan which might well characterise 
the first British troops to enter. We believed al- 
ways that we dazzled the Germans, and that they 
were rubbing their eyes and asking in surprise, 
"Are these the English whom we once despised? 
We believed they had no soldiers who could make 
so handsome a turn-out." And in this we were 
confirmed by our colonel, who kept regarding us 
always on the march as if we were the apple of his 
eye and greatest spiritual treasure. How angry 
he became when motor-lorries or stafif-captains' 
cars came alongside us, spattering us with mud and 
breaking the long straight line of our external files. 
It gratified us intensely whenever he stopped a car 
and made it wait till we had all passed by. 

Our songs broke forth whenever the pipers 
ceased to lead us, and in merry mood we accom- 
plished the last stages of our way. From Hellen- 
thal we marched to the picturesque village of Blu- 
menthal, with its castle on the hill, thence to Call, 
where the lager-beer was greatly appreciated. 
From Call we marched to the old town of Zulpich, 
with its fine towers. From Zulpich by Weiler to 



3i8 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

Erp, where the children watched us come in, hat 
in hand; from Erp to Lechenich, and through a 
very sodden wood to the briquet factories of Her- 
mulheim. Hermulheim is an outer suburb of Co- 
logne, and but a few kilometres were needed to 
bring us to our billets in the German city. And 
we entered one morning in the sunshine — with only 
the eclat of our own smartness and our own tri- 
umph, having been over a month on the road since 
we left Maubeuge. 

Some were billeted in schools, some in an old 
beer-house and theatre, and some found their way 
to the houses and the flats of the Germans, and 
made themselves comfortable. At first the centre 
of Cologne was out of bounds, and then it was made 
obligatory for us always to go about in twos in case 
of attack. But these restrictions quickly fell away, 
and we had the freedom of the city. 

The streets were packed with our boys at night, 
with them and with the well-dressed Cologne 
crowd. There was no intercourse in the streets, 
no soldiers walking with civilians, but, on the other 
hand, no friction. Both seemed very pleased to 
see one another. Food was scarce, but everything 
else was in plenty and not dear to buy, and it was 
the season of Christmas, and every shop had its 
soldiers within it, buying souvenirs and gifts. We 
were paid our wages in marks, reckoned as seven- 
pence each, and thus most objects exposed for sale 
seemed cheaper to our eyes than to the Germans. 

"If you see a thing in a shop," said an officer, 
"don't enter into long discussions with the shop- 
keeper, but fix a price yourselves and buy it." I 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 319 

believe this worked very well. I never heard of 
any trouble in the shops. Nobody in our rank 

and file could speak German. B , the actor, 

who would have been at home with the Teutons, 
was in hospital, gassed. When I used the few 
words and phrases I had picked up on my travels, 
the others looked up to me admiringly, and often 
brought me in to interpret their desires. 

However, it was in the various homes and back- 
parlours where we met the Germans more freely 
that our real exchange of thoughts and sentiments 
with them began. 

Whilst the rank and file of all units rapidly es- 
tablished themselves on terms of comfort with the 
enemy, and were even ready warmly to defend him 
in argument, it was possible for one more cool in 
judgment to observe some curious facts concern- 
ing the psychology of the German in defeat. 

The German reception, by reason of its warmth, 
was very baffling for Tommy Atkins. "Tell me," 
said one, "is it true that German mothers are bring- 
ing up their children to hate the English; are they 
not teaching them that England is the enemy, and 
they must fight her when they grow up?" 

The question was put to a very intelligent Ger- 
man engineer, who spoke English perfectly, a man 
who had supervised his own engineering contracts 
all over the world. We were billeted upon him, 
and he and his wife certainly treated us very 
kindly. 

He frowned over the question, paused a moment, 
and then answered emphatically: 



320 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

''No, it is not true. German mothers are only 
teaching their children that there must never be 
another war." 

He began a discussion of the merits of the war. 
He said he was glad we had won and so put an 
end to the strife. He did not think the private 
soldier at all responsible. 

"You are commanded to fight," said he, "and 
you obey. It is the same with us. We are com- 
manded, and we obey. I imagine it is much the 
same with you as with us: 'You pay, you obey, 
but you have no say.' " 

"Quite right, mister, quite right," said a chorus 
of fellows, whose simple minds saw no guile in 
such a thought. 

"We lost, and so we must pay," the German con- 
tinued with a smile. 

At Christmas every German house had its Christ- 
mas tree, even houses where there were no chil- 
dren. Many hours were spent elaborately decking 
them. 

"I suppose you'll have a good spread at Christ- 
mas, anyway," said a Tommy. "In England they 
are going on double rations." 

"No," said the German, "we shall only have a 
Christmas tree and a few glass balls." 

"Oh, I'm damned sorry to hear that," said 
Tommy. 

"Don't be sorry," said Fritz. "You won the 
war; we lost it. Had we won and you lost, 
then we should have had double rations, and you 
would have had a Christmas tree and a few glass 
balls." 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 321 

At a large house at another part of Cologne, a 
questing sergeant of Newfoundland arrived with 
a platoon of his men. The owner, a Westphalian 
millionaire, addressed the soldiers in this wise: 

"Yes, you may come into my house. All I ask 
is that you keep away from the women. Including 
my wife and daughters and the servants, there are 
twenty-one women here, but everything else is at 
your disposal. And I am under no illusion about 
the war. You won, and I expect you to behave 
as men who have won. It is no small thing to have 
defeated Germany in the field. In fact, gentle- 
men, I congratulate you on your victory, which 
has saved Germany. To show that I am sincere, 
I have sent to my cellar for champagne, and with 
my own hands I propose to pour for you whilst 
my wife and daughters shall wait on you." 

Thereupon he suited the action to the word, and, 
as the sergeant said touchingly, he would not al- 
low a man to drink twice from the same glass, but 
always had a clean glass provided. 

The adventures of the various units of the Army 
of Occupation have been manifold and curious and 
rare. A quartermaster-sergeant of Canadians bil- 
leted the whole of his company in a new hospital, 
and every soldier had a new bed and virginal sheets 
and palliasse, and the nurses cooked for them and 
looked after them, and generally bewildered them 
with kindness, though they were in themselves bit- 
terly indignant at the use to which the hospital was 
put. Our wild boys responded to the treatment 
like doves. 

"How do you account for it?" I asked the ser- 



322 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

geant. "If any hated the Germans more ruthlessly 
than others it was you." 

"Well, I don't know," said he. "They just 
knocked us off our Gawd-damned feet." 

And that was so, I suppose. 

If Tommies are seen marching out with Ger- 
man girls, both parties are put under arrest. But 
in the houses and in other private places the 
women are exceedingly forward. They do not dis- 
play the hate or coldness or bitterness which one 
would naturally expect from women toward those 
who had killed husbands, brothers, sons, sweet- 
hearts. The young girls are all bringing their 
albums, and, generally speaking, hanging round 
Tommy's neck, and the elder ones are fussing about 
fires and beds and chairs to give him comforts. 
For themselves, they have little food and little hope 
of any kind, but they are not in any way depressed. 
The sense of guilt, of moral wrong, is absent. All 
they know is they have played a game; they have 
lost, and they are giving up what is forfeit — that 
is all. And there is one great compensation — an 
Allied army is saving the community from a Spar- 
tacist revolution. 

"Honour to the victors and to the liberators of 
Germany! That's all very well," said a hard- 
hearted captain one night. "But I must have this 
matter out with mine host." 

So he sent for the owner of the house, who ap- 
peared suave and smiling in the mess. 

"I'm pleased to see you," said the captain, 
"though, of course, you understand me, not really 
pleased in any way. But take a seat. Now, I 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 323 

want to ask you a lot of questions. You've been 
treating our army here in Cologne pretty well, I 
admit, and there is no complaint. But how was it 
that you allowed our prisoners to return home so 
unfriended, uncared for, unfed? How do you ac- 
count for the treatment of our men in the prison- 
camps and in the places where they were forced to 
work? How do you account for the atrocities 
your people have committed? Your women are 
very friendly to us, but will you explain to me the 
stories of what you did to French and Belgian 
women during your occupation of their; towns? 
You are very polite, but how do you account for the 
behaviour of your submarine commanders? You 
say you believe in a League of Nations, but how 
do you account for your Government's deliberate 
encouragement of Armenian massacres, etc., etc.?" 

The German shrugged his shoulders, and grew 
more and more pale and taciturn. He could not 
answer. 

"Well," said the captain, "you'll have to pay for 
it all now, to the last farthing and the last brass 
button on the soldier's coat." 

The German seemed slightly relieved. 

"How much will it be?" he asked. 

"It is estimated at twenty-four thousand mil- 
lions sterling," said the captain. 

"Twenty-four thousand millions sterling," said 
the German deliberately, and with that he stood 
up, for it was late at night. "Twenty-four thou- 
sand millions — very well. We will pay it, and 
the account will be cleared." 

With that he waved his hand comprehensively. 



324 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

"Good-night!" said he with dignity, and walked 
out. 

I often asked myself the question in Cologne, 
Why has the German a good conscience? He 
had a bad conscience during the war; he has no 
right to a good conscience now. Our soldiers 
gaily marching from street to street, our soldiers 
singing in beer-houses and billets, had good con- 
sciences. But they, with duty done and a good 
cause, had every right to them. The Germans 
ought to have been obsessed with the wrong they 
had done humanity. 

I think possibly the German sang-froid was due 
to the manifest way in which British, French, and 
Italian Governments in the hour of victory were 
showing themselves false to the great ideals of the 
war. The Germans could take to themselves the 
consolation that their enemies were showing them- 
selves every whit as greedy and materialistic as 
they themselves had been. Germany had evolved 
the great selfishness and injustice of the Treaty of 
Brest-Litovsk, but at Paris we were preparing a 
"Victory Peace" beside which Brest-Litovsk would 
be altruism. I noticed that whenever we spoke to 
a German about the war from an ideal point of 
view, he seemed uncomfortable and uneasy. He 
was most anxious to deny an ideal point of view 
as existing in the Allies. His favourite point of 
view was of the European powers as gamblers risk- 
ing their fortune in the chance of war and diplo- 
macy. Germany had lost, and as in "honour 
bound" would pay the forfeit. If President Wil- 



XIV THE MARCH TO THE RHINE 325 

son was favoured in German minds, it was because 
the German thought that he would fool the Allies 
into a gentler settlement or that he would cause the 
Allies to quarrel among themselves. 

And whilst we were at Cologne the British Gen- 
eral Election, which practically left the soldier 
without a voice in the State, accomplished itself in 
all its dishonouring vulgarity, with its cries of 
"Make the German pay!" and "Hang the Kaiser!" 
Thanks to that election, Great Britain came to the 
Conference Table at Paris with no moral voice, 
no ideals — only with a notion of bargaining and of 
sheltering herself from responsibility behind either 
Clemenceau or President Wilson. Was it not a 
disgrace to our political and governmental sys- 
tem — to come to Paris without Christian principle 
or national dignity, after all the sufferings, all the 
deaths for the cause? 

The army, that is, the rank and file, was more 
honourable, and knew better what it wanted. 

"I am a married man," I hear one of our griz- 
zled veterans saying. "I have four children. 
Fve been out here three years, and it has been hell. 
But if the armistice were called oflf to-morrow, I'd 
gladly go on fighting. Why? In order that we 
might make a clean job of it. All I care for is that 
my boys shall not have to go through what I've 
gone through. We don't want to fight it all over 
again in ten years' time — we want to make the 
world safe once for all. Else what are we fighting 
for at all? Germany ought to be shown that force 
of arms does not pay. Her army ought first to be 
crushed and then completely disarmed. And 



326 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xiv 

Krupps' factories at Essen and elsewhere ought to 
be destroyed. . . ." 

How often have I listened to such talk. That 
is what the soldier-in-arms has thought in his heart, 
without prompting. 

The greatest indemnity dreamed of would not 
add up to the demilitarisation of Europe; nor is it 
decent to talk loudly of the payment of our expenses 
when the largest part of such expense is the men 
who in millions have been killed in the war. To 
arrange a sort of bargain-peace between the Allies 
themselves, and with the Central Powers, the sort 
of peace which leaves Europe an armed camp, 
would be the foulest injustice to those who have 
fought and to those who have died in the fight. 

Moreover, the Europe we are coming back to 
in peace is going to be a miserable place, where 
lies and cynicism and greed will be the main char- 
acteristics of public life, if our ideals are not rati- 
fied in the results of the victory. Public virtue 
will become a laughing-stock; democracy will con- 
tinue to be stampeded as by war-loan publicity 
campaigns and the election rampages of ambitious 
demagogues; there will be more evil standards in 
politics, literature, art, morals, finance. 

That does not deeply concern us, however, at 
the moment of our arrival in Cologne. The sig- 
nificance of the moment for us is victory and the 
justification not only of our own sacrifices, but of 
the sacrifices of all, and of all who lie buried by 
the way. 



XV 

THE FINEST THING IN THE ARMY 

For most people Cologne is the river Rhine and 
the Cathedral. The rather imposing commercial 
splendour of modern Cologne only testifies to Ger- 
man commercialism. But the Rhine is a great na- 
tional river and the cathedral is a great Catholic 
temple, a monument, if not of to-day's religion, at 
least of religion past. So on Christmas Eve I 
looked upon the river, and acknowledged that, 
though we came as victors, we did not come vain- 
gloriously, but rather with a great thankfulness to 
God that through us Germany and Europe could 
be free. Whilst the shops blazed with light, and 
the advertisement toys revolved in shop-windows 
of the city, attracting the gaze of the Christmas 
crowd, I was, with many other lads in khaki, in 
the quietude and dim light of the cathedral — ex- 
pecting somehow that this year in Europe a Child 
should be born. 

The fifth Christmas had arrived, and with it the 
victory of the cause, and a happy issue out of all our 
afflictions. Some twelve million English-speaking 
men had worn the uniform of the soldier and borne 
his heavy burden, and it might be said of many a 
battalion and regiment that more of its number 
lay now buried beneath the white crosses in France 
than were alive to regard the mild star of hope and 

327 



328 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xv 

peace. And of those who survived, who was there 
who had not suffered in the war? On a mountain 
of suffering our ark had come to rest. Neverthe- 
less, it was not of the suffering but of the victory 
that we thought. Christmas was a first Christmas 
again. We would not put on mourning on Christ- 
mas Day and go to the graves, but we should under- 
stand that if it was a glorious day for the living it 
was a more glorious one still for the dead, for they 
were justified in their sacrifice, and they had not 
died in vain. 

It has seldom worked out so happily in history 
before. Endless sacrifice for the ideal has been 
made throughout the ages, and the page of the his- 
tory-book records ever how wickedness has thriven 
on virtue and greediness has grown after unselfish- 
ness. But behold, in one of the grandest episodes 
in our human history that which men have died 
for and suffered for in largest number has swiftly 
come to pass. This Christmas of victory we re- 
joiced, not by ourselves, but with all those who had 
passed the bounds of our vision, yet who, neverthe- 
less, were with us now as they were with us then. 

We felt it should be an altogether-Christmas, 
when we should try to bring to festal hearth and 
camp-fire the spirit and the presence of all the ab- 
sent ones, not only those from whom for a few 
weeks and months we might be still separated, not 
only those we knew of whom Omar wrote so lov- 
ingly, 

Lo! some we loved, the loveliest and best 
That Time and Fate of all their Vintage prest, 
Have drunk their Cup a Round or two before, 
And one by one crept silently to Rest ; 



XV FINEST THING IN THE ARMY 329 

not only these, but those we never knew face to face, 
the thousands of "lonely soldiers" of humanity, 
who with few friends have fought with us for one 
and the same great cause. Let us be one with 
them! 

In the summer and autumn we marched over 
the great zone of the destruction which marks the 
old battle-fields, and as the German relaxed his 
grasp on ridge after ridge and horizon past hori- 
zon, we saw that which we desired to see — la belle 
France liberated. We came to the virginal, little- 
touched interior country, where the red roofs were 
on the cottages and all around the spires of parish 
churches pointed heavenward, where the fields 
were not pitted with shells, but carefully ploughed 
or harvested. We slogged along the road, foot- 
sore and gay, and one commonly heard the remark, 
"We don't mind how many miles we go this way." 
The delight at seeing the happy valleys of the be- 
yond-country was intoxicating. I heard one man 
exclaim on one occasion with true emotion: 
"What price this for the Promised Land!" 
That was an expression of our first impulse of 
excitement; but we camped there and got used to 
it, and read the papers and hung on President 
Wilson's words for many weeks, and perhaps for- 
got what it had been to come there from the heaps 
of decaying bricks and stone and the smell of the 
dead in the old "Somme Country." But my mind 
recurred constantly to the growing groves of white 
crosses where our dead lay buried, and to the thou- 
sands of graves where the unknown lay. What a 
number of these we passed on our way ! Wretched, 



330 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xv 

broken-down crosses, with their legends written, or 
rather scrawled, in copying-ink pencil : "Here lie 
1 6 British heroes." "Here lie two officers and 
twenty men, British — names unknown." "Here 
lies an unknown British soldier"; or in German, as 
was often the case, "Hier ruht in Gott ein Eng- 
lander," or simply "Ein Englander," or "Englisch 
soldat," or "English unbekannt," or as I saw one 
grave, German dug, "Anonymous England, 3 — 
21. 3. 1 91 8." What an enormous number of graves 
bore that fatal date, March 21! Such crosses, 
without particulars, are generally called "Lonely 
Soldiers," and much love is always lavished on 
them by the private soldier bringing wild flowers 
to them, making formal gardens round them of 
glass and chalk. There is a feeling that the un- 
known dead have made a deeper and a sweeter sac- 
rifice than even those who perished and were known 
and were buried "with name and number." 
There is a pathos about the dead who have neither 
number nor name, and in reacting to it the soldier's 
instinct is true. Theirs has been that holiest sac- 
rifice, and it is fitting we should carry the brightest 
tokens of victory and put them on the grave of — 
Anonymous England. 

What the war has done! It has brought us all 
closer together, though it has separated beloved 
from beloved. It has made us intimate with many 
strangers. As a nation we are more "altogether" 
than we were before — there are more faces rather 
than less round our happy tables at home, and look- 
ing over one another's shoulders at the gleaming 
hearth. And at humanity's board, perhaps, the 



XV FINEST THING IN THE ARMY 331 

nations themselves are nearer one another in friend- 
ship. 

The hardest lesson of army discipline is the sup- 
pression of individuality, the unconditional sur- 
render of the individualistic ego to the will of the 
nation. It is true that when that surrender has 
been made peace is at hand. But what a chapter 
of sufferings, mental and physical, before the mind 
and soul are willing: to make that surrender! Yes, 
the uniform of the King, if it enlarges and increases 
some, does narrow and straiten others, cuts them 
down, reduces them to humble equality with those 
whom in the old days they had long outstripped in 
the life-race. And yet, as a whole is greater than 
its part, the reduction is only an illusion. The 
contrary is really true, and the uniform makes one 
larger— bigger altogether. But that one can only 
know — after peace has been obtained. One has 
become part of the great chorus of the army, with 
the sense of a large number thinking and doing 
altogether. There is a good French word for be- 
ing individualistic; it is gauche, and gaucherie 
means a sort of left-handedness, a being out of step. 
The march and the sufferings come easier, too, 
when one is in step. The army as a whole, the na- 
tion as a whole, helps to bear your sufferings. 
For indeed men have suffered things in this war 
which no individual ''on his own" could possibly 
endure. But our men have endured them because 
others were suffering with them, all around them, 
and there was a common power of strength sustain- 
ing them all. The nation — that beautiful invisible 
being we sometimes call Britannia — has sustained 



332 A PRIVATE IN THE GUARDS xv 

each and everyone of her children, and has fed our 
soldiers with mysterious strength as they had been 
babes" at her breast. 

The hardest thing for the nations also has been 
to hear the drum-beat of Christianity and self-sac- 
rifice, the long process of learning to fall into line, 
and to march in step together. As with the in- 
dividual soldier, so with the individual rebellious 
nation, unconditional surrender alone gives lasting 
peace, and allows humanity to feel itself whole. 
Thus the honour and the splendour of mankind is 
sustained. 

Some soldiers from the first had a greater sense 
of .the honour of their regiment and of the army 
and of the nation for whom they fought than others. 
They were ready to die for the greater body to 
which they belonged and for the greater cause to 
which all were dedicated. They had the patience 
and the spirit of self-sacrifice which this sense de- 
manded. They had the forbearance not to tread 
with too rough foot upon a grave or to touch with 
less respect the bodies of the fallen. They had that 
daring which prompted them to outbid their com- 
rades in the doing of dangerous tasks. It was 
sometimes called "Camaraderie," the sense of com- 
radeship; sometimes "Devotion to Duty," some- 
times "Valour." It was most truly Christianity; 
for does not Christianity mean the suffering of the 
One that All may have more life, the bread and 
wine of the New Testament which makes us all 
one Body and one Spirit? It was most commonly 
called nothing at all, and passed unnoticed. But 
it is Esprit de Corps, the honour of the regiment, 



XV FINEST THING IN THE ARMY 333 

the spirit of the whole; Esprit de Corps, which at 
its highest and best and widest and profoundest 
becomes Saint Esprit, 

the one spirit of the mighty whole, 
The spirit of the martyrs and the saints. 

Those vile camping-grounds, those disgusting 
trenches and bloody frays, the bullying, the bludg- 
eoning of the heart — not much of the Spirit in all 
that I can hear some of the wearier ones remark. 
But they too will in days to come look back and 
realise the Spirit that was in their midst, the finest 
thing in the army and in the war. As yet they re- 
member all too well the brutal aspects of it all, the 
cruelty and sordidness, the petty tyranny and the 
impurity, but the time will come for many when, 
recalling the way and the march and the Spirit in 
the midst, they will ask of their old war-comrades 
as did one apostle of another at Emmaus, "Did not 
our heart burn within us while He talked with us 
by the way!" 



INDEX 



A.C. means "accepted Christ," 63 

Adinfer, 194 

Adjutant: a hard adjutant means 
a hard sergeant-major, 108 

Advance of August 1918, 212, 247 
seq. 

Air raids, 94 

Alexandra, Queen, 94 

"All the blue bonnets are over 
the Border," 305 

"All we ever do is sign the pay- 
roll," 199 

American Relief Committee, 194 

Americans, 38 seq., 55, 92, 126, 
198; opposed to work, 55 

Amour propre, 60 

Ancient Sparta, comparison with. 

Angels whisper, 71 

Arbre de la Femme, 269 

Ardennes, 296 

Armistice Day, 277, 300 

Arms presented, 99; reversed, 

100 
Armstrong, the gardener and 

wrestler, 161 
Army, conditions, 28, 72-73, n6, 

145, 146; like public schools, 

regular, 13, 28, 142 
Arras, 189 
Ascension Day, 197 
Atmosphere of barracks, 45 
Atrocities committed in advance, 

132, 310 
Atrocity stories, 211 
Attitude to the dead, 222, 223, 

226 seq., 238 seq. 
Attitude to the enemy, 205 
August 1914 repeating itself, 127 
Australians, 15 

B , the actor of St. Louis, 40, 

254-255 

B , the musical composer, 36 

Banks Reserve, 253 
Baths, 57, 80, III 

335 



Battle-fields, 228 seq. 

Bavai, 275 

Beer, giving it away, 292 

Belgians, 159 

Belgium, entering, 287; joy days 
in, 290 seq. 

Bernard, the vocalist, 37 

Bigsey, the policeman from Phila- 
delphia, 258 

Bill Browns, 22, 31, ii6, 131, 176, 
253, 264 

Boesinghe, 170 

Bombs and Bombing, 74, 112, 156- 

157 
Booby trap, 199 
Bourlon Wood, 54, 170, 229, 255, 

312^ 
Boussieres, 261 
Brain versus cause, 252 
Brass band, vulgarity of, 93, 129 
Brooke, 141, 185 
Browning, 193 

Brutalizing effect of war, 202 seq. 
Buckingham Palace, 96 
Bulgaria, surrender of, 259 
Bullying, 26 
Bumble and Buck, 177 
Burns quoted by men, 149 
Byng Boys, 170 
"By their sacrifice we live," 12 



Calais, 157 
Campbell, R. J., 84 
Campbell's poems, 184 
Canadians, 15, 50, 137-138, 321 
Canal du Nord, 257 
Carnieres, funeral at, 266 
Cartigny, 161 seq. 
Cecil, Lord Hugh, quoted, 99 
Cemeteries, 139, 298, 329 
Champagne, discovery in cellar, 

168 
Chaplains, 86, 97, 98, 137-138, 

153, 179-180, 238-246, 315 
"Charge, Chester, charge!" 184 



336 



INDEX 



Chessmen, original pieces made 
on battle-field, 238 

Chesterton, Cecil, 141 

Chivalry, 206 

Christians, 241-242 

Christmas at Cologne, 320, 327; 
in the trenches, 144-145 

Civil Church, compared with 
Church parade, 96-97 

Civilians, 22, 60, 77 seq. 

Cleavage between Christianity 
and military service, 99 

Clery, 161 

Cockney, best soldier in a High- 
land regiment, 32 

Cologne, 316-326; cathedral, 327 

Colours, the, 100 

Common sense and esprit de 
corps, 116 

Conan Doyle's poem on Loos, 

53 
Conrad, not read by rank and file, 

186 
Conscience and Duty, 75 
Conscience of the Germans, 324 
Conscripts, 14 
C.O.'s orderly, 204-205 
Crevecoeur, 260 
Crown-and-Anchor, the game of, 

176 seq. 

Danse de joie, 292 

Dead, the, 226 seq. 

Death, cheapness of, 9 

Death penalty, army founded on, 
146 

"Decategorying" a musician, 38 

December i8, 1914, raid of, 144 

Delivery of the French popula- 
tion, 263-264 

Demobilisation, first lecture on, 
280 

Derby men, 124 

Dickens, 183 

Dirt, removing, 77-78 

Discipline, 1-20, 145 seq., 281 

"Doing one's damndest," 185 

"Donald Blue," 102 

Drafts, 121 seq., 189 seq. 

Drill, 24, 45, 48, 58, 106, 153; 
competition, 113 

Drill-sergeants, 4, 203 

Drocourt, 229 



Dusty Smith, 172 
Duty, 13 

Easter at Havre, 130-131 

Ecoust, 230, 255 

Editing battalion records, 141 

Effigies, 274, 301 

England, 97 

Entrenching tools, in 

Escarmain, 274 

Esprit de corps, 90, 104-119, 150, 

333 
Estinne au Mont, 287 
Esturmel, 261 

Example, making an, 145 seq. 
Exiles returning to their homes, 

269-273, 286 

Fergie, 263 

Festubert, battle of, 145, 147, 207 
Fier comme un ecossa'ts, 142 
Fighting Germany in Germany's 

way, 17 
Fitz of Virginia, 40, 130, 190, 

249, 255, 265 
First parade, 48 
Fontaine I'Eveque, 290 
Forgiving enemies, 154 
Fourth Brigade of Guards, 192- 

193 
Fraternising with Germans, 144, 

311-324 
French Canadians, 137, 229; 

girls, 194 seq.; peasants, 159, 

194, 269; women, 194 
Frontier of Germany, 305 
Funerals, 100, 266 

Gambling, 176-178 

Gardens of Cartigny, 162 seq. 

Garvice, 186 

Gas, effects of, 266 

Gaucherie, 331 

General A , 86 

George and the Dragon, 98 

German girls, 322 

German rear-guards, 252 

Germanisms, 273 

Germans, 14, 227, 300 seq.; com- 
pared with French and Bel- 
gians, 314 

"Getting down to it," no, 113 

Girls, 113 



INDEX 



337 



"Giving a steady one," 205 

Glory, new type of, 143 

"God's in His heaven, the 

Guard's in the line," 193 
"Good-bye and spare none," 130 
Good Friday, 127-128 
"Go tell to Sparta," 11 seq. 
Gouzeaucourt, Guards saved day 

at, 125, 170 seq. 
Grandecourt, 160 
Gray's Elegy, 183 
Grievances, 118 
Guards, 16, 189, 316; Chapel, 96; 

Guards never retire, 199 

H , who wished to charge 

with the Guards, 41, 130, 252, 
262 

Hackneyed quotations, 184 

Hall Caine, 185 

Hardy's Dynasts, 176 

Harlaw, March of the Battle of, 
308 

Hate, 316 

Haussy, shelling the returning ex- 
iles near, 270 

Havrincourt, 260 

Hazebrouck Road, battle of, 192 

Hellenthal, 310 

Hermulheim, 318 

"Her pay-day," 114 

"Hey, Johnny Cope," 102 

Highlanders, 130, 157, 263 

Highland Light Infantry heroes, 
258 

History of battalion, 141 seq. 

History, soldiers' ignorance of, 
187 

Hohenzollern Redoubt, 145, 157 

Humiliation, 54, 55 

Hymns, applied to duties, 102- 
103 ; parodies of, 47 

"I don't mind damn-well fighting 

..." 156 
"I heard the pibroch sounding, 

sounding," 308 
Ignorance, 182 seq. 
"Immortal Eighty," 147 
Impressions of war's ruin, 139, 

193, 214 seq., 255 
Impurity, 72, 75 
Indecent language, 54, 72 



Indemnities, 326 

Inhumanity, man's, to man, 149 

"Innocent lures," 196 

Inspection, at barrack-gate, 70; 

by the King, 59 
Institutionalism, baleful shadow 

of, in Army, 116 
Instructors, 26, 28, 63, 105 

Jerry, who sang like massed bar- 
rel-organs, 44, 46, 81 

"Jimmy," the deadly foe of hum- 
bug, 205 

Jocks, 31, 41, ii6 

Joe, the stupidest man in Little 
Sparta, 43, 44 

Justice, 19 

K— — , Ensign, at St. Python, 264 

"Kidney," 173 

"Killing Huns," 206 

"Kill or cure," 2r, 61 

King, his inspection of us at Lit- 
tle Sparta, 59; King's Guard, 
90, 91 seq., 106; loyalty to the 
King, 88-89; understanding of, 
88, 100, 187 

Kitchener's Army, 14, 124, 141; 

"Knocking civvies into shape," 27 

L , nicknamed Creeping Bar- 
rage, 240-242 

Labour men's credulity, 131 

Lagnicourt, 256 

Last Post, loi 

Laventi, 148 

Les Boeufs, 160 

Letters on the battle-field, 233 

Life below stairs, 114 

"Little Sparta," 21-76, 105-106 

"Lonely soldiers," 330 

Loos, 30, 53, 145, 156 

"Lord Lovat's Lament," 308 

Loving one's enemies, 243, 255, 
315 

Luck, 177 

Machine-gunnery, 74 
Machines versus machines, 143 
March 21, 1918, 126, 330 
Marchiennes au Pont, 290 
Marching, 132, 159, 281 seq., 316 
Maubeuge, 275, 281 



338 



INDEX 



"Men of Portree," 309 
Millet, 197 
"Missing," 235 
Moeuvres, 229 
Monchy-au-bois, 193 
Monuments to the dead, 10 seq. 
Mormal, forest of, 273 
"Morning of Europe," 76 
Mottoes for soldiers' graves, 11 
Mr. Britling sees it through, 185 
Munition manufacturer, sorrows 
of, 83 seq. 

Nails, keeping them clean, 58 

Names of the dead, 98 

N.C.O.'s, 109, 147, 204 

"Nelson's last signal," 185 

Neuve Chapelle, 145, 151 

"Never catch the sergeant's eye," 
26 

New Zealand men, 22 

Nicknames, 62, 172 seq., 178 

Night, in the barrack-room, 47, 
69; over the ruins, 222 

Nobby Clark, 172 

"No, for I have heard the night- 
ingale itself," 76 

Noreuil, 229, 255 

Obedience, 54 

Occupied area, 260, 268 

Officers, 16, 85 

Officialdom, 9, 13 

"Oh, Cromwell, Cromwell . . .," 
184 

"Oh, Europe, where are thy chil- 
dren? " 237 

Paris leave, the way it was spent, 
240 

Peace, by mutual consent of rank 
and file, 145 ; rumours of com- 
ing, 267; treaty, 324-326 

Peronne, 161 

Pilkelm Ridge, 170 

Pipes, 93, 303 seq. 

Poets of the battalion, 147, 207, 
226 

Polish, 55 seq., 91 

"Polyphemus wants you," 120 

Presbyterianism — the true reli- 
gion, 96 

Presenting arms, 99 



President compared with King, 
89 

Price, Captain, V.C, 192 

Pride in the regiment, 115 

Prisoners, 3, 31, 131, 207, 209, 
259, 270, 285 

Private X, court-martial and exe- 
cution of, 146 seq. 

Pronville, 229 

Punishment, 17, 57, 64 

Purity, 27, 244 

"Putting the wind up the men," 
205 

Queant, 229, 231 

Queen, the, 100; the "mobled," 
239 

Rags, 148 

Railway, building a, 161 

Reading, 186 

Red, the American volunteer, 39 

Retreat, precautions for, 199 

Revolutionary propaganda, 95 

Ribecourt, 260 

Robbery, 168, 282-283 

Roman Catholics, 137-138 

Rumour, 131, 267, 278, 302 

Russia, 125, 313 

S , the financial expert, 42-43 

Saki, 141 

Saluting, 59 

Sand-bag king, 169 

Savages, imitation of, in raid, 
249 

School, sergeants', 51 

Scott, 183 

Scottish prejudice in favour of 
Scots, 31 

Second Division, 270 

Self-respect defined, 60 

Sentries, 112 

Sepmeries, 274 

Sergeant-majors, 26, 92, 104 seq., 
113, 148, 203-204 

Sergeants, 26, 28 seq., 106 

Sergeant Three, the humorous 
instructor, 32-33, 48-51 

Sermon on the Mount, not avail- 
able for chaplains during the 
war, 243 ; but available after 
armistice, 315 



INDEX 



339 



"Service of Caesar is service of 

God," 99 
Seventh Division, 142 
Shakespeare quoted, 6 
Shav?, G. B., recruit's ignorance 

of, 186 
Shooting at dawn, 154-155 
Slang, 172 seq. 
Sleep, 69 

Smartness, 56 seq., 59 
Snookcy-ookums, 52 
Soldiery, 74 
Solesmes, 262 
Sombrin, 198 
Somme, battle of, 159 
Songs, 46, 121 
Songster, the scapegoat, 35, 61 

seq. 
Souvenirs, 145 
Spartacism, 322 
Spot Fraser, 173 
Squaring, 54, 108, 122 
State and Soldier, 99 
St. Gerard, German cemetery at, 

298 
St. Hilaire, 262 
St. Leger, 255 
St. Python, 263 
St. Vaast, 262, 271-272 
"Stupid to the point of piety," 

195 . 
Stupidity promoted, 5 
Surrender, 17 
Swank-parade, 52 
Swearing, 26, 27, 72, 171 
Symbols of the army, 99 
Sympathy-killers, 205 



Taffies, 3, 22, 46, 131 

Taking no prisoners, policy of, 
207 

Tanks, 253 

Taverns, 148 

"Teddie," present King referred 
to as, 188 

"Thank God we've got a Navy," 
50 

Thanksgiving service at Mau- 
beuge, 281 

"Their Name liveth for ever- 
more," 12 

"The men are splendid," 182 



"There must never be another 

war," 320 
Thermopylae, 76 
Thinking evil, 210 
Thomas, 141 
"Thou shalt not kill," 3 
Timber Wood, 172 
Time, 82 
Times, not read by rank and file, 

187 
Tolstoy and War, 19 
Tom the Grenadier, 175 
Tommy's French, 273, 312 
Toothbrush, 58 
"Touch me not with impunity," 

Trade Unions, 172 

Train for the Front, 133 seq. 

Trenches, the, 10 

Trio juncta in uno, 51, in 

Tschaikowsky's 1812, 308 

Tug Wilson, 172 

Uniform, 79, 116, 161, 202-203, 
330 

V.C.'s, 8, 42, 147 

Veterans, 144 

Victory, emblem of a stuffed cock, 

274 
Villers Pol, 274 
Violoncellist who would not cut 

his hair, 38 
Voice, the, 204 

Walloons, 297 

War's ruins, 139, 193-194, 214 

seq., 255 
Washing off the barracks, 77 seq. 
Wells, H. G., 186 
"What price this for the Promised 

Land," 329 
Wiggs, Mrs., sometimes called 

Bigsey, 258 
Wilson's fourteen points accepted, 

267 
Winning the war by numbers, 37 
Wire-cutters, 17 
Wives, 70, 75, 122, 124 
Wolfe, General, 183 
Word of command, 203 
Working-men in khaki, 5, 35, 57, 

65, 172, 181 seq. 



340 INDEX 



Worst characters put in bombing You're for it, or you're not for it, 

company, 157 120 

Wounded, killing the, 3, 208 Ypres, 142, 158, 312 

Y, the ruthless sergeant-major, 

147 seq. Zitter, marching through forest 

Y.M.C.A., 63 of, 307 

"You pay, you obey, but you have Zulpich, 314 

no say," 320 



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